AC Cars has brought back the Ace with 300bhp and a £175k price tag

Nope, this isn’t a Wacky Racers version of the AC Cobra. It’s called the Ace, and was originally built between 1953 and 1963 with fewer than 700 examples ever made. But now, AC Cars’ newly-formed ‘Classic’ division is bringing it back with the same vintage looks… and a Focus ST’s running shoes.

You can have two versions: the standard ‘Ace’ or the ‘Ace Bristol’. Both get a 2.3-litre EcoBoost four-pot with a tweaked ECU, a good old fashioned six-speed manual and rear-wheel-drive.

The outputs are impressive: 300bhp, 277lb ft and a 0-62mph sprint of 4.6s. It also gets a revised side-exit exhaust system to give it a renewed vocal cord, but these new bits have bumped the weight up significantly. The original tipped the scales at around 870kg; this carbon-fibred second-coming gains an extra *230kg*. Still light in 2024's world, of course.

The three-inch steel tubular frame chassis is at least draped in some gorgeous retro cues: perfectly spherical headlights, curved panelling, a chequered grille and a tall windscreen. The tiny 15in alloys are protected by thick tyre walls too, and the Bristol Green paint finish in the example shown really brings it all to life.

None of this will come cheap though, with AC Cars quoting a minimum of £175,000 (which isn’t that far off what you’d pay for a new McLaren Artura). Place your order now and it'll arrive next summer.

Reckon more than 700 will be shifted this time?