1959 AC Ace “Cobra” Roadster

The success of Cliff Davis’s successful Tojeiro sports-racer prompted AC Cars to put the design into production in 1954 as the Ace. The Davis car’s pretty Ferrari 166-inspired Barchetta bodywork was retained, as was John Tojeiro’s twin-tube ladder-frame chassis and Cooper-influenced all-independent suspension, but the power unit was AC’s own venerable two-liter long-stroke six.

This overhead-camshaft engine originated in 1919 and, with a modest 80 bhp (later 100 bhp) on tap, endowed the Ace with respectable, if not outstanding, performance. It would be left to Texan racing driver Carroll Shelby to fully exploit the design’s potential in the form of the legendary Cobra.

Convinced that a market existed for an inexpensive sports car combining European chassis engineering and American V8 power, Shelby concocted an unlikely alliance between AC Cars and the Ford Motor Company. The former’s Ace provided the chassis...