AC Aces raced at Le Mans in 1957 and 1958. In the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ted Whiteaway and John Turner drove their AC Ace Bristol, registration 650BPK, to the finish, claiming top honours for the 2,000 cc GT class and seventh overall behind six 3-litre cars.
The AC Ace LM prototype was a one-off from 1958 with the unusual chassis number LM5000. It was designed by John Tojeiro on behalf of the brothers Hurlock specifically for the AC factory to field at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and other long-distance events.
The car weighed only 737 kilograms. It differed fundamentally from the standard Ace: it had a lightweight tubular steel chassis without the massive ladder structure, new double wishbone front suspension with coil-over-dampers, and a newly designed independent rear suspension. The open aluminium body was much lower, with large overhangs front and rear and a low nose and high tail for aerodynamics. The body was designed by artist Cavendish Morton, who also styled other sports cars. Both engine and transmission were from Bristol, with the engine being a Bristol Type 100D2/S unit.
After a test run on the Brooklands circuit just a few kilometres from the AC factory, the not-yet-fully-sorted prototype completed two events in 1958: as a factory entry in the Le Mans 24-hour race in June, and in the Rudac Racing Team at the RAC Tourist Trophy at the Goodwood Circuit in September. Due to changes in the regulations, the car was ineligible to compete in the next event in its class in the FIA Sportscar World Championship. The Bristol drivetrain was returned to the manufacturer and the racing car was sold engineless. Later rebuilt, the Ace LM prototype was acquired by a collector.
The AC Ace Bristol Zagato was designed and built by the carrozzeria Zagato in 1958 on Ace chassis number BEX 477, indicating a Bristol-powered export (left-hand drive) chassis. The idea arose at the Geneva Motor Show in 1957 during a meeting between Hubert Patthey, the importer of AC and Aston Martin cars to Switzerland, and Elio Zagato. Patthey commissioned Zagato to produce a unique body for the car, which would be used at local races and in particular at the Pescara rally.
Zagato produced a coupé body of thin aluminium sheet with their trademark Double Bubble roof, with vaults over the driver's and co-driver's seats to ensure sufficient headroom. The car competed in only one well-known race on 5 October 1958, at the Coupes du Salon, where it won its class of cars up to 2000 cc.
Patthey sold the finished coupé to John Gretener, an Englishman then living in Switzerland, who raced it in hill climbs around Lake Geneva. Racing driver Jo Siffert later acquired the car, using it at different racing events and in historical races including the Mille Miglia. In 2000, American Jim Feldman acquired the AC Ace Bristol Zagato from the now-defunct Rosso Bianco collection and personally restored it.
The Ace Bristol Zagato is fitted with a Bristol six-cylinder engine producing 130 hp at 5750 rpm and 128 lb-ft at 4500 rpm. It is 3,848 mm long, 1,245 mm tall, and weighs 862 kilograms ready-to-run, with a top speed of 185 km/h.
The AC Ace-Aigle refers to a special built in Aigle, Switzerland on Ace chassis number BEX 289. BEX 289 was the first AC Ace to leave the factory with front disc brakes. Hubert Patthey sold it to Charles Voegele, who used it as his personal car and entered it in some races. In 1959 it was damaged in a crash at la Col de la Faucille, after which it was resold by Patthey to brothers Claude and George Gachnang and brought to their workshop in Aigle.
The Ace-Aigle received a modified nose and a fixed hardtop for improved aerodynamics, including a Double Bubble roof design. The factory front end was replaced by a new longer, lower, rounder nose made of lightweight glass-reinforced plastic with a flat oval cooling air intake and headlamps recessed into the wings with plexiglas covers. The car also received an all-new suspension.
In this form it was driven in the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans by Georges Gachnang and André Wicky, with John Gretener as reserve, entered as Ecurie Lausannoise. It successfully completed the Le Mans test in April 1960 but was not classified in the June race due to insufficient distance covered. The Gachnang brothers subsequently formed Scuderia Cegga — for "Charles et Georges Gachnang, Aigle" — in 1965.
A modified Ace Bristol with chassis number BEX 1192 appeared at Le Mans in 1962, which was also the last Le Mans appearance of an AC Ace before the advent of the AC Cobra from 1964 onwards. The car of a French private owner, it was based on an Ace 2.6 chassis and received special bodywork with faired-in headlights similar to BEX 289.
In 1961, Texan Carroll Shelby approached AC's owner Charles Hurlock with a proposal to install a Ford V8 in the Ace chassis. AC agreed and began adapting an Ace 2.6 to accommodate one of Ford's new small V8s. Shelby arranged for Ford to provide two engines and shipped a 3.6-litre version to Thames Ditton. Among the many changes made to accommodate the engine's greater power and torque was the selection of a Salisbury 4HU differential with inboard brakes, as used on the Jaguar E-type. Built on chassis CSX2000, AC dubbed the car the AC Ace 3.6. The engine was removed and the car was shipped to the United States, where Shelby's crew installed a new 260 cu in (4.3-litre) version of the Ford V8. CSX2000 is considered the very first AC Cobra. Production of the Ace ended one year after the debut of the Cobra.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.