The ACs in My Life
Though I have only driven two, there were four AC Aces which flitted into and out of my life with cars between 1985 and about 2000 or so. Three of them were Ace roadsters with the Bristol motor while the fourth was an Aceca coupe which had that original unit swapped out for one of the much less common Ford Zephyr engines. They were all, in potential or reality, wonderful and achingly lovely looking cars.
My mentor Ernie Mendicki owned two of them. One was a burgundy roadster while the other, co-owned with Alf Norman, also a convertible, was silver with a metal tonneau cover over the passenger seat and bearing a red racing stripe down its hood and trunk (or, more properly for a British car...the bonnet and boot).
The other two both were owned by John Lewis...a red roadster and the aforementioned Aceca. I'm pretty sure John's open car was the first of the breed I was aware of. I'm not even sure at that point that I knew that the original 260 and 289 Cobras were indeed the same basic car.
As noted in other posts, I met John through his business relationship with Sherri...she did a number of real estate escrows for him the the mid 1970s, and it was at a party where John took us for a ride in his then new-to-him 330GTC which brought me into the Ferrari Owners Club and thence to vintage racing with various organizations. (See “Through the Corkscrew II”).
Along with many others in the FOC, just as I was coming into the group John was leaping off into moving beyond track days with his 330, followed by his Daytona and 275GTS, and into vintage racing with a Bristol powered red AC.
The AC began life as a couple of one-off specials designed and built by John Tojiero. In fact, at about the same time Mike Tangney, who had a big hand in reconstructing my Siata 300BC, was campaigning one of these. One thing led to another in the mid 50s and AC cars bought into the idea of building a slightly revised version of these specials, powered by a four cylinder motor of their own design.
But AC had also obtained, as a result of WWII, the rights to a much more powerful and interesting motor designed originally by BMW. These rights came to them via Bristol cars, thus the designation for the unit. The roadster was actually called the “Ace.” though the more powerful six cylinder version is commonly known as an “AC Bristol” and not an “AC Ace Bristol.” So much for nomenclature.
What made the motor special was its unique valve train. Externally you would swear it was a dual overhead cam engine, but the reality was that it was the unique rocker arm setup which gave it that look and, no doubt, also contributed to its robustness. The combustion chamber was hemispherical, and the result was a powerful yet strong engine. The motor was orignally developed for and used in the BMW 328 and Frazer Nash. Unfortunately I was unable to find a diagram of the setup, but I will try to describe it. The pushrods come up the side of the motor in a conventional manner, but then instead of a normal rocker assembly, the arm actuated by the pushrod is linked to its partner in a manner whereby the partner arm activates its valve...from the opposite side of the motor. The linkage is contained in the head assembly itself, and thus the required chamber for the linkages look very much like, instead, they contain two overhead camshafts.
The result was not only unique, it was staggeringly successful in competition. Though only a few hundred cars were built, it totally dominated the 2 liter class. It was also the only front engined, rear weight biased sports car of which I am aware.
John's cars were never the most pristine or well maintained examples of the breed, and his roadster was no exception. I only drove the car once, and only from the paddock to the tech inspection ares and back for one Monterey Historic, and it was an embarrassment. The car failed because the support for the front anti-swaybar had totally rusted through. I was doing John a favor by bringing the car to tech as he was unable to make it to the track at the required time, He showed up and jury-rigged some sort of fix and did get the car to pass, but I found it incredible that he would even show up at the track with such a glaring safety issue on the car.
Given that, it still amazes me that I allowed Adin to ride back from the Virginia City hillclimb in the car. It was freezing cold for that particular version of the event, and the aluminum floor of the AC is notoriously hot...so much so it could be capable of melting the rubber on a driver's shoe soles. Adin was about ten at the time, and simply curled up in the passenger footwell with the car cover wrapped around him. He was a lot cozier than poor John, whose hands didn't thaw until he had them wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate at a local cafe on Highway 89 around Markleeville for fifteen minutes or so.
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| John's AC Virginia City Hillclimb Circa 1980 |
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| Topographical Map of the Virginia City Course Times are class winning for my Ferrari Note the comment about the off camber Turn 16 See "Nevada Insanity" (January 2017) for more Information The dotted line is the "return to start" road kept open to the public during the event |
John later bought an Aceca coupe. John could be a bit of a hot-rodder...once converting a Jaguar X6 to use the V12 Jag motor because he could not find, did not want to spend the money for, or perhaps they never built, a two door V12 variant.
Thus, there were only a handful (nine, I think) Acecas which left the factory with the Zephyr six cylinder motor. But John's research indicated that there were other cars, originally Bristol powered, which were later converted, and decided he would race the Aceca with such a conversion...I think he got as far as painting the car and putting the motor in and convincing CSRG to accept the car, but he passed away before doing much else...and the car passed to his daughter and son-in-law and I lost track of it. It was in need of a full restoration.
Ernie told me that his two roadsters could not have been more different from each other. He said the oversteer of the burgundy car was almost violent in nature (I never drove it, but I have no reason to doubt him), while the silver car was much more gentle and forgiving. He never expressed an opinion as to why this should be, and I unfortunately never asked him.
When Ernie died I really lusted after the silver car, and not only because it was such a joy to drive and so well prepared visually and mechanically. More important to me was that it was the only car I watched Ernie totally restore from one end to another, and the car was a virtual wreck with a front end so badly done it shortened the car by a full eight inches. Ernie did everything on it from paint to upholstery, though I am not sure if he shopped out some of the mechanical work. I do know that his metalwork included fabricating the metal tonneau mentioned earlier in this post.
Alf was a long time friend of Ernie, but had fallen into a rather bad space, with an alcohol problem and assorted medical ailments. Buying, restoring, and racing the AC was, in part, Ernie's way of helping Al recover some reason to get up in the morning, regain some energy and joy in life, and crush whatever demons were haunting him. While I did not know Alf before the AC project, I can attest that in those years the AC was indeed the catalyst for pleasure and meaning for him.
One of Alf's sayings stuck with me. I only heard him say it once, and this was, no doubt, related to some unexpected turn of events in his own or someone else's life...and not for the good.
“If you want to make God laugh,” Alf said, “tell him your plans.”
After Alf died Ernie assumed sole stewardship of the car, and one day he asked me to co-drive a two hour “enduro” with him in the AC, on the original Thunderhill “short” configuration. I was thrilled, though a bit intimidated, as the idea of being responsible for one of Ernie's cars “on track” was not to be taken lightly.
To familiarize me with the car he suggested a drive around Cupertino. I had never driven a right hand drive car in America, and I was not exactly comfortable with the idea of doing so in this dense urban area.
And then I sat behind the wheel, and was so deep in the car that I felt like I could only barely see over the swooping front fenders. Ernie told me to relax, that the car was, in fact, no bigger than an MGA...but it certainly did not seem that way to me. At any rate, I made it around town and back to his house without doing damage to either of us or the car.
The race was far more enjoyable, though the prep work was a bit...uncomfortable. Ernie did not use battery tenders, and when we went to do that test drive, the battery needed replacement. For those unfamiliar with the AC, this would be funny if it were not so annoyingly difficult. I suppose the reason was to keep the weight down low, but at any rate the battery lives at the bottom of the inner passenger fender, in amongst the usual spaghetti of an engine compartment, right down on the lower frame rails. There is precious little clearance to maneuver, and of course the damn thing weighs 50 pounds or so.
It took both of us to wrestle it out and the new one in, and we were so twisted around each other that it could have been an illustration for a “Gay Kama Sutra.” Though we were both laughing, I just hoped Ernie's nearby neighbor and pro photographer, Llew Kinst, did not show up with a camera.
We did really well in the race, though I don't remember the exact finishing position. Ernie demanded a conservative tach maximum, without which we would have, no doubt, done even better, but the car was a delight to drive and I loved the torquey Bristol motor. The photo below was taken by Ernie's wife Marylou, just after competing the event. It was a great memory to share with Ernie, and you can tell we had a great time. Hard not to in such a wonderful car.
Though I briefly considered making an offer for the car after Ernie died, I quickly gave up the idea when it became clear I would have to sell both the Ferrari and the Siata to have a chance at it. And at that point this was not something I would consider.
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| We had just finished the enduro at Thunderhill Unfortunately Marylous did not notice the deep shadows on the car We used my the permanent number I have on the Siata the Same number it used at Sebring in 1953 |
The Silver Ace has been restored to original road car spec and is back in its original home in Ireland.
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