01
Origins
The 2-Litre of 1947 was AC's first post-war car, and it wore its continuity openly: under the bonnet sat the company's overhead-cam two-litre six, a design first run in 1919 and still, three decades on, smooth and willing. The car itself was a trim, upright saloon — later joined by rare tourer and drophead versions — built in modest numbers at Thames Ditton for buyers who wanted hand construction without Bentley money. It was no sports car, but it kept the lights on and the workforce skilled through the austerity years, which mattered enormously: when John Tojeiro's chassis arrived in 1953 to create the Ace, AC was still there to build it. Around 1,300 were made to 1958, by which point the company's future — the Ace, and everything the Cobra grew from — had already arrived.
AC-2litre ca1955 UK · Charles01 · Public domain
