page_title: AC Cars
section_title: AC (Acedes) Ltd.
hierarchical_section_title: AC Cars / History / AC (Acedes) Ltd.
caption_attribution_description: AC 2 Litre 4 door 1950s photographed in UK
context_page_description: AC Cars, originally incorporated as Auto Carriers Ltd., is a British specialist automobile manufacturer and one of the oldest independent car makers founded in Britain. As a result of bad financial conditions over the years, the company was renamed or liquidated many times until its present form.
context_section_description: Selwyn Edge bought the company outright for £135,000 in 1927 and re-registered it as AC (Acedes) Ltd., but sales, which had been falling, continued to decline. The company was caught by the crash of 1929 and went into voluntary liquidation.
  Production ceased for a time, and the company was sold to the Hurlock family who ran a successful haulage business. They wanted the High Street factory only as a warehouse (Ferry Works was not acquired), but allowed the service side of AC to continue.
  A single car was made for William Hurlock in 1930. He liked it and agreed to restart very limited production, mainly using components left over from previous models.
  
  An agreement was reached with Standard to supply new chassis, the ancient three-speed transaxle was replaced by a modern four-speed gearbox (built in unit with the engine), and by 1932 a new range of cars was finally launched. Production continued on this small scale, averaging less than 100 vehicles per year, until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The final pre-war car was delivered in June 1940, after which the factory was fully involved with war production.
  After the war, AC secured a large contract with the government to produce the fibreglass-bodied, single seat, Thundersley Invacar Type 57 invalid carriages with Villiers 2-stroke engines. The invalid carriages continued to be built until 1976 and were an important source of revenue to the company.
  Production of cars restarted in 1947 with the 2-Litre, using the 1991 cc engine from the 16. The 2-Litre used an updated version of the pre-war, underslung chassis, fitted with the AC straight-six engine and traditional ash-framed and aluminium-panelled coachwork, available in saloon or convertible versions.
  They also built an aluminium-bodied three-wheeled microcar, the Petite, as well as "Bag Boy" golf carts (with independent suspension to the two wheels).
  In 1953, the firm began production of the AC Ace, based on a lightweight chassis designed by John Tojeiro and Hand built Aluminium Body designed and built by Eric George Gray with the venerable Weller-designed 2-Litre engine.
  For 1954, a new aluminium-bodied closed coupe was unveiled at Earls Court, the AC Aceca. It was only slightly heavier than the convertible Ace, and because of better aerodynamics was actually slightly faster (128 mph (206 km/h) top speed).
  Today, Acecas are popular at historic racing events. Arch McNeill, a factory Morgan racer from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s told fellow Texan and Aceca owner Glenn Barnett that "the Morgan team spent two years campaigning to beat the factory AC Acecas and finally did in the late 1950s". Though more valuable than comparable AC or Shelby replicas, the Aceca is still a bargain when compared to a Shelby CSX Cobra, while maintaining similar performance.
  There was a demand from some customers for a larger four-seater car, for whom AC produced the Greyhound. This was built on a stretched Ace chassis with coil suspension all around and a 2.2-litre Bristol engine.
  The AC Ace LM Prototype was a single piece from the year 1958 with the unusual chassis number LM5000, which John Tojeiro designed on behalf of the brothers Hurlock specifically for the AC factory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and for further long-distance racing. The vehicle was only 737 kilograms (1,625 lb) and differed fundamentally from the standard model: it had a load-bearing, lightweight, tubular steel frame without the massive ladder structure, a new front axle with single wheel suspension, this time in the form of upper and lower triangular steering with coil spring / shock units, and a newly designed pendulum axle at the rear. The open aluminium body was much flatter, with larger overhangs at the front and rear and aerodynamically rounded with a lowered down front and high tail. It was designed by the body builder Cavendish Morton. The engine/ transmission unit, a tuned production unit, came from the Bristol Type 100D2 / S. After a test ride on the Brooklands circuit, just a few kilometres from the AC factory, the prototype, which was not yet mat
caption: A.C. 2-Litre 1947–1956. The four-door configuration and the wider 6.75 × 16 inch wheels identify this as a later example. The flashing indicators will have been retro-fitted.
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