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AC 427/428 Frua

The exclusive

Those were wild times, back in the early, mid-60s (when weren’t they?). Ferrari had gained the upper hand in sports cars, always winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1960 onwards and also the Tour de France, year after year. In the USA, the “Big Three” also got involved in racing again, i.e. officially, but there, too, only one brand won the most important international race from 1961 onwards: Ferrari. We know what happened next, Ford overtook racing, wiped out everything with the GT40, but we have already told this story in detail here in “Contexts”. But none of this would have been possible without this one man, Carroll Shelby. And he had another bone to pick with the Italians, which was one of the reasons why the AC Cobra came into being. We have, of course, also told this story. But all that was not enough, Ferrari was always good for a few surprises and loopholes in the regulations and a lack of calculation skills on the part of the officials (see: Ferrari 250 GTO). The answer was the AC Cobra Mk III, the beast with the completely new chassis from AC Cars and the 7-litre engine from Ford. But something went wrong there too, suddenly the officials could count again, and so there Shelby and AC Cars were in 1964/1965 with a bunch of race-ready chassis – and zero prospect of being able to race them. Sure, we know, there was the AC Shelby Cobra 427, which also sold well in the USA, but AC Cars also had to do something in Europe. The result was the AC 289 Sport Mk III – and the AC 427/428 Frua, which is the subject of this article.

But now we need an insertion, which is called: MA-200. Read this story first, before you continue reading here, you will find it: here.

AC Cars, the oldest of the still existing English manufacturers, had this technical competence centre, i.e. an excellent, self-developed chassis and also a powerful engine. What made the Hurlock brothers turn to Pietro Frua for the bodywork, we don’t know – apparently they spoke to Bertone first. But that was just the fashion in England at that time, already in 1954 came the Arnolt-Bristol with design by Zagato, the beauty of the Aston Martin DB4 was due to Touring from 1958, Bristol had then cooperated with Zagato once more at the end of the 1950s, Gordon-Keeble launched a new “hybrid” form with Bertone in 1963, British brand, Italian design, American large-scale production technology. We also know that Pietro Frua himself was very active, a good businessman with excellent connections. Perhaps it all went through contacts of the well-known Swiss racing driver Hubert Patthey, who imported AC to Switzerland. In any case, AC Cars sent a six-inch-longer MKIII chassis to Turin in the early summer of 1965 – and in October exhibited the dark red-painted result (#CF1) alongside an all-white Cobra 427 at the London Motor Show.

Ah, Frua. There was already talk of the Maserati Mistral in the MA-200 prototype, so the AC certainly can’t deny a certain visual kinship. And even if the front was quite different, the Monteverdi High Speed 375 was quite similar in the lines of the coupé. You can’t pull the wool over Frua’s eyes, business is business, the respective manufacturers were also involved in the design. And they knew their competitors. And Frua had a huge competitive advantage: he could deliver quickly and reliably. But Frua made one mistake in its haste: the vent was too small, the car overheated quickly – and the occupants were slowly stewed. With AC, therefore, the radiator had to be moved because it got really warm in the footwell, there was an additional oil cooler and more air vents behind the front wheel arches.

It was still: the hammer. At that time, no one could boast such a vehicle. Sure, there were the Ferraris and the still young Lamborghinis, but with their noisy and also vulnerable V12s, they played in a different league than the 7-litre V8. A small note on this: the first cars were still AC 427 Frua, so they had the racing engine from the Cobra. In March 1968, however, it was changed to the tamer 428, which was also more suitable for road use (other sources claim: already from CF6). The tubular chassis with independent front and rear suspension, trapezoidal wishbones of unequal length, coil springs, Armstrong telescopic dampers and Girling disc brakes remained, however, and despite a wheelbase 150 millimetres longer than that of the Cobra, it was suitable for racing – and made the Frua-AC something of the best that was to be found on the not-so-good roads of the time. This combination of an extremely powerful engine, relatively low weight (1400 kilos), very good handling and good looks should have been a guarantee for a great success, especially since a beautiful coupé was added in Geneva in 1967.

The production was complicated. In Thames Ditton at AC Cars, a chassis was first built that could be rolled (they had a few left at the beginning), and these were shipped by rail to Turin. There, at Maggiore, the body was mounted to the chassis by hand (boot lid and bonnet were made of aluminium), then it went back to England by train. There, the interior was put into the car, and only then was it painted. This time-consuming process was certainly the main reason for the high price: in 1968, AC Cars charged an impressive 4050 pounds for the Coupé (at the end of its career it was even 5573 pounds, but then including the automatic transmission), and another 200 pounds more for the Cabriolet; in Switzerland, surprisingly, the closed car cost more (52,000 Swiss francs, 1969) than the Cabrio (49,000 Swiss francs, according to the AR catalogue). A Jaguar E-Type was available in Switzerland at the time from 25,500 francs.

The press was enthusiastic, they praised the handling, the pulling power (no wonder with the “side-oiler” with 385 hp/624 Nm, later in the 428 with 345 hp/642 Nm), the top speed (“Autosport Magazine” came up with 245 km/h, at least in the version with the manual 4-speed gearbox from Ford; but customers ordered the three-speed automatic far more often, which was also supplied by Ford), in “Autocar” even the fuel consumption (only 17 litres!). Customers were also enthusiastic – but there were only a few, far too few. Until 1973, only 49 coupés were built, plus 29 convertibles and another 3 special versions, including a new attempt by Frua in 1973 and a four-seater that was actually a Monteverdi (AC 429); Luigi Colani rebuilt his own AC in the 1980s according to his very own ideas. So 81 copies. We will dedicate a nice collection to them.

But it just wasn’t enough, 1973 was finished, even before the first oil crisis really made life difficult for the luxury manufacturers. AC Cars slowly disappeared from the scene, tried to make a new start in the 80s and 90s and 00s and 10s. Today the brand is owned by a Swiss consortium, you will learn more about it here. In the meantime, we recommend: the archive.

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