AC Is Back With MkVI
Geneva show debut for new AC model - but you might just recognise it...
Curiously, though, the MkVI is actually a German-built affair and uses a 430bhp GM V8. But fans of Blighty-built ACs need not worry: AC-badged cars are soon to be built in the UK, too.
As well as AC Germany, AC Cars is establishing a dedicated AC Heritage Centre at the top of the historic Brooklands test hill in Surrey. The UK-based Heritage Centre will be 'formally' opened later in the year, and AC says it will make an announcement 'in the near future' as to which cars it will produce in Brooklands.
Let's not forget our cousins across the Pond, either; Iconic Motors has adopted the AC brand for its ultra-high performance car, the Iconic AC Roadster, which delivers an impressive 825bhp and 680lb ft of torque, plus a top speed of 210mph and a 0-60mph time of less than three seconds.
So AC is back - and, crucially, its cars are ready for the road. "The key to our future though is based on achievement, so when we announce a new model it will be available - as the AC MkVI is today - ready for sale," says AC Cars chairman, Alan Lubinsky. "For the first time in a decade we're able to provide customers with genuine, high quality cars from a range of proven production sources."
If you want to have a closer look at the MkVI, it will be on AC's stand at the Geneva show next week, alongside an example of the car that started the whole Cobra thing (though of course the new car is most emphatically not a Cobra...), an original AC Ace.
Big V8, proper plumbing; Yummy.
Might as well be a kitcar maker now, as real one have Fords, er and are Built in England (Surrey).
Can't see the point. So many crappy reps on the road, whuy would you want to be confused with possibly owning one.
The Cobra has been completely devalued and debased by the kit car industry.
Nine out of ten "Cobras" that you see are kit cars. Some are so good that they are indistinguishable from the real thing. Some are hopeless Pinto engined lash ups.
But the assumption (and reality) is that if you see one it will be a kit car and not a real one.
I hate to say this, but Graham Nearn was absolutely right to sue everybody in sight to protect his rights to manufacture the Seven.
As a result, the Seven has retained its identity as the real thing, even though the current offerings have considerably less in common with a Lotus Seven than the Westfield that I owned in 1985.
Might as well be a kitcar maker now, as real one have Fords, er and are Built in England (Surrey).
Can't see the point. So many crappy reps on the road, whuy would you want to be confused with possibly owning one.
And Alan Lubinsky was also behind them being being in Malta as well I think.
The name AC has been w
ed around so much that it's hardly worth anything these days. As much as I'd like to see a "Heritage Centre" at Brooklands I am not sure it will repair all the stuff that's gone on since Brian Angliss sold out (and his stewardship wasn't without some clangers along the way either).
Kitcars range is from 25K for a used Dax to 100K for a top specced Superperformance car.
I can't see the point in this, marketwise. Wish 'em luck though!
As for the US 'Iconic AC Roadster' what an dog of car. They have taken a great looking car and given it a right beating with the ugly stick. There's no way I'd want to do over 200mph in it either.
However, I think I'd be less scared to use a good replica, and as such it would get used more, and probably driven a bit harder too. (None of these are really about track days, but I would throw a replica down a
country lane harder than a real one.
I think any car like this is about how much you use it, and how it makes you feel. I rented a Morgan for the weekend when I got married. Throwing it down the country lanes it was brilliant, I loved it. That is the appeal of these cars, to me at least.
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