This is a 1995 AC Brooklands, it’s a rare British sports car that was built in limited numbers, but the prices on them aren’t as high as you might expect, with auction prices typically around $25,000 USD.
The styling of the Brooklands won the car a lot of admiration when it was released in 1993, but perhaps more interestingly, the all-stainless-steel chassis was designed by racing engineer legend Len Bailey who designed the chassis for the multiple-24 Hours of Le Mans-winning Ford GT40.
Fast Facts: The AC Brooklands
- The AC Brooklands is a rare, low-volume British V8 roadster built using an unusual stainless-steel chassis designed by Len Bailey, better known for his work on the GT40. It pairs aluminium bodywork with a Ford 5.0 V8 and either a 5-speed manual or 4-speed automatic, giving good performance by mid-1990s GT standards.
- Production was extremely limited, with around 46 Brooklands-badged cars built from 1993 to 1996 before AC’s financial collapse, and roughly a dozen face-lifted Ace V8s afterward.
- This example was first registered in April 1995 and has had only two owners, accumulating 66,135 miles. It’s finished in black paint, a matching interior, the original alloy wheels, and comes with a dealer brochure, service stamps from AC, and maintenance records from specialists including Redline Engineering.
- Offered by Historics Auctioneers, it has a guide price of £14,000 to £18,000, roughly $18,340 to $23,580 USD.
History Speedrun: The AC Brooklands
AC is one of Britain’s oldest carmakers – its origins go all the way back to 1901 through the Weller brothers’ early automotive experiments, before the company evolved into Autocars and Accessories and later Auto Carriers Ltd. in 1911.
This is a 1995 AC Brooklands, it’s a rare British sports car that was built in limited numbers, but the prices on them aren’t as high as you might expect, with auction prices typically around $25,000 USD.
The company made its bread and butter initially by manufacturing three-wheeled delivery vehicles and light cars, but in the post-WWII years the company completely remade its image with the release of the AC Ace in 1953, a tubular steel chassis, alloy-bodied roadster that offered fully independent front and rear suspension and genuine competition pace in its displacement class.
A few years later that same Ace chassis, fitted with a Ford small block V8 at the request of Texan racer Carroll Shelby, evolved into the Shelby Cobra (also known as the AC Cobra), a brutal Anglo-American sports car that dominated 1960s sports car racing and became AC’s defining US export.
By the 1980s AC had been through insolvency, a mid-engined experiment with the AC 3000ME, and eventually a takeover by Cobra specialist Brian Angliss of Autokraft. From his factory on the grounds of the old Brooklands circuit, Angliss built high-quality MKIV Cobras and then set his sights on a modern AC sports car that could sit alongside, or even replace, the Cobra.
That project would become the AC Brooklands Ace – often shortened to just AC Brooklands.
The story of the Brooklands starts with the Ace of Spades concept, first shown publicly in 1986. It was based on Ford Sierra XR4x4 running gear with a 2.9 liter V6, all-wheel drive and an angular targa-top body. Technically it made sense, but potential customers weren’t sold on the looks or the relatively modest performance for a car wearing the AC badge.
The AC engineers went back to the drawing board, and by 1991 a very different prototype appeared, with styling by the team at International Automotive Design (IAD), a shortened wheelbase, two-seat roadster layout, and unusually, a new stainless steel chassis.
The styling of the Brooklands won the car a lot of admiration when it was released in 1993, but perhaps more interestingly, the all-stainless-steel chassis was designed by racing engineer legend Len Bailey who designed the chassis for the multiple-24 Hours of Le Mans winning Ford GT40.
That stainless steel chassis design is widely credited to Len Bailey, the engineer best known for his work on the Ford GT40. The structure used stainless steel for corrosion resistance, with fully independent suspension at each corner, giving the Brooklands Ace a more contemporary platform than many of its competitors.
Production of the AC Brooklands Ace began in earnest in 1993. The car kept the IAD-shaped aluminium bodywork but dropped the pop-up headlights of the concept car in favor of faired-in twin round headlights. Power now came from Ford’s 5.0 liter V8, essentially Mustang GT spec, driving the rear wheels through a Borg-Warner 5-speed manual or a 4-speed Ford automatic.
Contemporary power and performance figures vary, some quote 225 to 228 bhp, others closer to 260 bhp, but all essentially agree that performance was firmly in then–modern-GT car territory with 0 to 60 mph in under 6 seconds and top speed in the 135 to 145 mph range. Curb weight was about 1,440 kgs (3,175 lbs), so it was more of a fast, refined open GT than a featherweight sports car.
The interior fitout of the Brooklands was aimed squarely at the Mercedes-Benz SL buyer. The car came with an electric soft top on later cars, plus air conditioning, heated seats, and a nicely trimmed cabin.
Hand-built aluminum coachwork and the low-volume stainless chassis made it expensive to produce – list prices were quoted at around £50,000 in the mid-1990s, putting the car up against heavy-hitting German competition.
The Production Numbers
Between 1993 and 1996 only about 46 Brooklands-badged examples were completed before AC again fell into receivership. Under new owner Alan Lubinsky, the car was reworked and relaunched in 1997 simply as the AC Ace V8.
Power is supplied by Ford’s 5.0 liter V8, essentially in Mustang GT spec, driving the rear wheels through a Borg-Warner 5-speed manual.
The facelift brought revised front wings, rectangular headlamps borrowed from the Mazda 323, plastic bumpers, a simplified structure and a slightly wider engine range that eventually included 5.0 liter and 4.6 liter Ford V8s plus a 3.5 liter Lotus twin-turbo V8.
Even so, only about a dozen second-series cars were built by 2000, for a total run of roughly 58 Brooklands Ace/Ace V8s.
Unlike the original Ace and the Cobra, the AC Brooklands Ace never developed a big motorsport record or a roster of celebrity owners. Instead it lives in that odd space where 1990s niche sports cars often end up – rare, technically interesting, and still somewhat under the radar.
As a result of this, it’s still possible to buy one for rather reasonable sums, as noted in the introduction, prices on the secondhand market for good examples seems to hover around the $25,000 USD mark. That’s not bad for a car with a chassis designed by the legend behind the GT40.
The 1995 AC Brooklands Shown Here
The car you see here is a 1995 AC Brooklands, it was first road registered on the 1st of April 1995 and since then it’s had only two owners, and covered 66,135 miles.
It’s finished in black paintwork over a matching black interior with wood trim, and it has a black convertible roof.
The car you see here is a 1995 AC Brooklands, it was first road registered on the 1st of April 1995 and since then it’s had only two owners, and covered 66,135 miles.
The car rides on its original alloy wheels and it comes with an original dealer brochure and bills and receipts, including the owner’s handbook with six service stamps at AC, and service invoices from leading marque specialists Redline Engineering of Surrey.
It’s now due to roll across the auction block with Historics Auctioneers on the 29th of November with a price guide of £14,000 – £18,000 which works out to approximately $18,340 – $23,580 USD. If you’d like to read more or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Historics Auctioneers
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
