David Wagner

[Chafford]

Gus
   
   With it's Mk11 chassis and 260 V8, RS5038 is a fascinating car. How do your fellow countrymen react to it? Many Cobra fans in the States appear not to know about the Ruddspeed Ace.
   
   
   
   
   
   Mark

[Gus Meyjes]

People love it, think it's a Cobra or don't know what it is. Few ever heard about AC. That's the general public.
    It took first at the Road and Track concourse last summer. good competition, no backyard car show. It's invited to Concourse of America this summer. This is a very high end concourse on this side of the pond. It got the two thumbs up from Jim Farley, Ford worldwide marketing chief executive and Cobra 289 owner and racer...  And that's all nice, but what really matters is what I think. And I think I like it!! What a great car to drive!!
   
   Gus

[Gus Meyjes]

Jim Farley's toys:
   Including David Wagner (to stay with the topic of this thread) Built 427 street Cobra. Very nice stuff.
   
   http://www.insideline.com/ford/jim-farley-driving-fords-future.html

[aaron]

quote:Originally posted by shep
   
Wow! Excellent thread! Gus, I know you are dead right, and I thank the Lord daily for all the gifts which I am lucky enough to enjoy. Today was a beautiful day, and this evening a couple of friends came over, and we drove in an Ace Bristol and Mk IV Cobra about 10 miles down country lanes to the pub for dinner. Even at 10.30pm on the way home we didn't need a jacket, and could smell the damp grass and the woods as we passed. It would have been lovely in any open car, but a brace of ACs can't be beat! I was also thinking about Keith's words about us being custodians, and I agree completely. The funny thing is that our cars have risen in value relatively recently. Before the hike, we were not custodians, but silly old gits playing with equally old cars. Go back 20 years and I bought my first Ace Bristol for 24k pounds. Five years ago you could have picked up any 428 Frua for 25k pounds, and about the same for a Mk IV Cobra. The Aceca Bristols were grossly undervalued too, which is now equalling out. Those with grey hair may remember the late 60s and early 70s when the AC Factory couldn't give Cobras away. Trevor knows better than me, but I seem to remember 2k being the going rate for a new one straight out of the showroom at the height of the Fuel Crisis. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and money always spoils the game. I was talking to Bill Bridges at the AC pub gathering at Runfold the other Sunday, and marvelling at his purchase of the Hairy Canary before the Classic Car world went mad. It has given him such a lot of pleasure, and good on him. Now where is that cocoa?
   

   
   Andy , please remember that the Hairy Canary was a box of bits when Bill aquired it,he then spent a year rebuilding it, but I guess that box of bits would cost a feww more quid now !!

[shep]

Yes, I remember BB restoring every last nut and bolt on the Hairy Canary, but the end result has been worth the effort many times over. I have never bought a car with the intention of making money, and I believe BB is the same. If they were all worth nothing tomorrow, we would still enjoy them just as much. As Gus says, you can look at those beautiful body curves for ages and never get bored with the shape, and then you can get in and drive them. Life doesn't get much better.

[B.P.Bird]

Andy a phrase you just used caught my attention - 'if they were all worth nothing tomorrow we would all enjoy them just as much' well what a profound statement. Absolutely the truth. Let us acknowledge that this sums up the ethos of the A.C.O.C. and were we all to put it in to practice then then the youngsters would get a look in. Let us adopt it as the Club Motto.

[shep]

Thanks Barrie, from you it is a compliment indeed. If only we could divorce these lovely cars from financial value, the world would be a better place. I have previously said that in many cases, the cars are now in the wrong hands, and are unloved status symbols locked away in private collections. Granted, the higher values do justify restoration in some minds, but the downside is that young enthusiasts are priced out of the market. The Bentley Drivers Club seems to have a better attitude to sharing their prized possessions with the next generation. At the BDC meeting at Silverstone on Saturday 11th August, you will see dozens of fabulous pre-war cars, being driven by 20 year olds. More so than in any other marque that I know. Back to your point Barrie, let's make it the ACOC ethos to share our cars with the next generation, and encourage them to be used as they were intended!

[CRS9505]

Nice dream, only works if you have entry level cars available on the market at around the £25 - £30k mark.
   It also calls for a better acceptance of later AC products ie Mk IVs, CRS , MEs and Ace "Brooklands" none of which is as readily available as entry level Bentleys/Ferraris/Astons etc.
   Also requires some form of "associate" membership for selected continuation models (Shelbys, Kirkhams, Hawks etc) which could conceivably come into reach of younger members.
   At the present rate of climb cars sold at these levels will be in permanent storage loaned out for static display and the next tranche of owners will be so far removed from regional club meets and muddy fields that a new club "The AC Enthusiasts Club" will be formed. []

[Gus Meyjes]

I think the idea of acceptance and associate membership is very good.
   
    I became an AC enthusiast only after building my first replica Cobra. Than the hobby got out of hand, like for many of us, and I built a Kirkham, shortly followed by restoring an Aceca and completing a "late" model Ac 2.6 Ace.
   
   And, not to open up a can of worms again, I would like to see a bit more consistent view on what is considered a "real" Ac. My RS 5038 was not accepted as such by the club's registrar stating it did not drive out of the factory in Thames Ditton and was completed with parts not supplied by AC later. This, of course, is true for a lot of "registered" cars, as we've seen on this forum and the story about the destroyed in a fire and brought back to life 2.6 Ace.
   It's about the enjoyment of using these cars, not about snooty attitudes...
   
   
   Gus

[nikbj68]

quote:Originally posted by CRS9505: Nice dream, only works if you have entry level cars available on the market at around the £25 - £30k mark.
   It also calls for a better acceptance of later AC products ie Mk IVs, CRS , MEs and Ace "Brooklands" none of which is as readily available as entry level Bentleys/Ferraris/Astons etc...

   You want entry-level? How`s about the prototype Brooklands Aceca coming up at Coys, guided at £13k-£16k? Click pic to go to auction catalogue:
   
   

[SB7019]

Shep.
   
   Good point on the BDC and I certainly hope one of my daughters will be driving my car when I have departed this world.
   
   Best example of the Bentley boys are the Morley family.  Great grandfather John was, I believe, the first in the line,  ( BTW soon after WW2 he was bequeathed the Birkin that just sold for over £5M), followed by grandfather Peter ( who used to own the 24litre Napier that can still be smoking its rear tyres at the end of a straight) father Clive and the latest generation, Stuart and James.  The latter 4 can often be seen racing against each other at various events.  Stuart recently married my neighbours daughter so there is a chance that a further generation will be on the track in the foreseeable future.
   
   There are usually a few AC's competing at the BDC meeting and there is always good racing and a good atmosphere there.

[CRS9505]

Nik - don't you just love the "Shelby" association in the catalogue description  (great for search engine crawlers) but does it run and is it another prototype with a £30k reserve like the ebay Heritage Aceca.
   The previous comment re the Bentley driving family yet again illustrates the added value of classic cars as investment vehicles for the purposes of Inheritance Tax. (Passing on valuable cars has become as tax efficient as passing on farms) []

[Chafford]

quote:Originally posted by CRS9505
   
Nice dream, only works if you have entry level cars available on the market at around the £25 - £30k mark.
   It also calls for a better acceptance of later AC products ie Mk IVs, CRS , MEs and Ace "Brooklands" none of which is as readily available as entry level Bentleys/Ferraris/Astons etc.
   Also requires some form of "associate" membership for selected continuation models (Shelbys, Kirkhams, Hawks etc) which could conceivably come into reach of younger members.
   At the present rate of climb cars sold at these levels will be in permanent storage loaned out for static display and the next tranche of owners will be so far removed from regional club meets and muddy fields that a new club "The AC Enthusiasts Club" will be formed. []
   

   
   If you're going to attract younger enthusiasts to the ACOC you would need to broaden your associate membership to Dax, Gardner Douglas and AK. This would bring new blood into the club and help dispel the widespread view that the ACOC is an old fashioned, elitist organisation. At ACOC events you could have a separate category for replicas. The Dax owner welcomed this way would more likely buy a CRS or another AC model if such an associate membership were offered.
   
   And who wouldn't welcome the owner of a car like the AK below into the ACOC?
   
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_boulton/7443819230/in/pool-906682@N20/lightbox/

[Chafford]

quote:Originally posted by shep
   
Thanks Barrie, from you it is a compliment indeed. If only we could divorce these lovely cars from financial value, the world would be a better place. I have previously said that in many cases, the cars are now in the wrong hands, and are unloved status symbols locked away in private collections. Granted, the higher values do justify restoration in some minds, but the downside is that young enthusiasts are priced out of the market. The Bentley Drivers Club seems to have a better attitude to sharing their prized possessions with the next generation. At the BDC meeting at Silverstone on Saturday 11th August, you will see dozens of fabulous pre-war cars, being driven by 20 year olds. More so than in any other marque that I know. Back to your point Barrie, let's make it the ACOC ethos to share our cars with the next generation, and encourage them to be used as they were intended!
   

   
   You only have to look at the lack of owner involvement on the Thames Ditton Cobra forum to see evidence of this.

[Classicus]

quote:Originally posted by Gus Meyjes
   
....I would like to see a bit more consistent view on what is considered a "real" Ac.

   Always a difficult one with obviously many shades of opinion but I personally tend to see it all as a question of degrees of originality whether it's an old car or say an original work of art such as an old and very valuable oil painting conclusively proven by the experts to have been painted by Michelangelo, Rembrandt or Botticelli. Or whether it was an original to start with that was later finished off by one of their pupils, or one completed in the style of the Master long after he was dead.
   
   Just my take on it all....[]