AC Cars
AC Cars Group Ltd. is a British specialist car manufacturing company and one of the oldest independent car marques in Britain. Based in Weybridge, Surrey (see also British motor industry). ==History== In 1903 Weller Brothers in West Norwood, London, planned to produce an advanced 20hp car. This looked economically unviable so their financial backer John Portwine proposed a simpler 3 wheeled vehicle. Autocars and Accessories was founded to make this in 1904. This company became Autocarriers Ltd in 1911 using the 'AC' logo. The company moved to Thames Ditton, Surrey in 1911 and grew into a substantial car manufacturer. S F Edge, who had been behind Napier, joined the board in 1921 and in 1922 both John Weller and John Portwine left. In 1922 the name changed again to A.C. Cars Ltd. Edge bought the company outright for £135,000 in 1927 and re-registered it as AC (Acédès) Ltd but sales, which had been falling, continued to decline. In 1930 production ceased and the company was sold to the Hurlock family who ran a successful haulage business. They wanted the factory as a warehouse but allowed the service side of AC to continue. A single car was made for William Hurlock in 1930. He agreed to a very limited production restarting mainly using components left over from previous models. Agreement was reached with Standard to supply new chassis and in 1932 a new range of cars was launched. Production remained on a small scale until the outbreak of war in 1939. Production of cars restarted in 1947 with the 2 litre and with a large contract with the government to make glass fibre bodied single seat invalid carriages with BSA engines. These continued to be made until 1976 and were an important source of revenue to the company. They also built an aluminium bodied three wheeled microcar, the Petite. In 1953 the firm began production of the AC Ace, a lightweight chassis with either the now rather old AC 2 litre engine or the 135 bhp Bristol six-cylinder engine, the latter being known as Ace-Bristols. The car raced at Le Mans in 1957 and 1958. When the company lost access to the Bristol engine in 1959 Ford Zephyr engines were used with the highest tuned version giving 170bhp and a 125mph top speed. In 1962 AC was approached by Carroll Shelby to use a Ford V8 in the Ace chassis, producing the AC Cobra. The Cobra was a dangerously over-powered roadster, and is commonly blamed for the introduction of the 70 mph limit on British motorways. Although a major factor in the decision, after being caught doing 196 mph during a test run