About six months ago, I saw one of these for the first time, a fellow living in my fair city had one at a weekly auto geek meet up behind a coffee shop.

At first, I wondered if it was from a kit as it didn’t have the huge flared fenders of the Shelby item or many of the kits for that matter. The hood was open and I saw that it was not a V-8, it was a DOHC 6. Then I spied a tag that said “Bristol” and had an OMG moment.

The owner is quite the collector. Has the number of exotic Ferraris as well. He and I hit it off, he was telling me the other day that he’s getting frustrated with the engine and was wondering if he might sell it. I told him I thought it was a keeper, that it would make him royalty at the auto concourses. He hasn’t taken it to one yet, he did take it to a cobra meet up and had a good reception. And I don’t wonder, this car is major history in physical form. He said there were several other ACs but they had V8s.

https://silodrome.com/ac-ace-bristol-car/

I don’t think he’s done a lot of work on it yet, he did have to carefully clean the three air filters with a special solution, and then ran them through an old dishwasher. Not sure if something could be fabbed for a new material replacement for the NLA air filters, no surprise on that.

The annoying issue now is trouble with starting. It has a choke control, a pull out knob, as well as another control, perhaps a primer of some sort. He likes to drive it locally, brings it down to the meet ups now and then.

I wish I had some good advice for him on this. I suspect there are restorers around who would know what to do.

Looks a lot like this one, same color, has some blistering on the bonnet, gives it more authenticity I guess.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K