Ak Miller's Bonneville AC Bristol-Ford V8

[Historybuff]

I met Ak Miller maybe decades ago and remember him saying "I beat Shelby to the idea of putting a V8 in an Ace."
I found a picture on the net of his Ace Bristol (recognizable by Mustache type body sculpturing outside of grille cavity) but the odd thing it said 289 on the doors and 260 on the hood. But the guy who took the picture said it was taken around '62 or '63 which doesn't put him before Shelby chronologically. When I met him in '65 or '66 he was a Ford Performance consultant, traveling with Shelby, so I think he could have gotten some free engines to experiment with about the time of the Shelby Cobra project. Also Ak raced a Devin bodied car , maybe even Pikes Peak hill climbed it, that might have been all that was left of his Ace-Bristol, with a lot of American hot rod parts added. He did five Devin bodied specials but only one was an Ace. So my question boils down to: was Ak spoofin' me that he had shown Shelby the way to the Holy Grail?

[JBCOBRA]

Ak most likely put a V8 in first.......however, Ak was not good at Sales, Marketing and Smoke and Mirrors!

[london]

'Cobra. The First 40 Years' refers to an AC Ace (BEX 327) built in 1957 at Thames Ditton with flared wheel arches and hood scoop. The car was exported to the US and was raced with a Chevy V8 in the SCCA championship. There are some good pictures of the car in Trevor Legate's book.

http://www.acaceca.de.tl/BEX-327-191-EPC.htm

[wrf]

I am new here and actually this is the first time I have seen this site. I was prompted to sign in here after reading the commemorative article on Carroll Shelby Hot Rod Magazine and the fact that it seems to just be taken for granted that the Cobra was entirely his idea. So let me add some real first hand next door neighbor information to this discussion since Mr. Miller seems to always be over shadowed and trampled by the bigger Shelby promotional machinery.

I grew up next door to Ak Miller on Ben Alder Ave in Whittier California and as kids we spent a lot of time peaking into his garage when he was out working at night. More than once Mr. Shelby came by driving any number of hot rods and used to spend a lot of time in the shop with AK. Dean Moon would come around also with Shelby and though I did not know what he looked like I knew where his shop was and later saw his pictures in Hot Rod mag. Anyway Ak had two aluminum AC Bristols in the garage and I recall he put a small V-8’s in one of them. I was told it was a Chevy I but could not confirm this. This would have been around 1961. Later we saw Ak and Shelby driving this same car around the neighborhood several times since if sounded like and looked like nothing else we had ever seen. This neighborhood was full of hot rod legends so seeing rods running around was not uncommon at all — we just never saw anything like the little silver AC with the loud V8.

Hope this helps
wrf

[GeorgiaSnake]

There is a nice picture of Ak's AC Bristol Bonneville Car on page 50 of issue # 32 The Rodder's Journal.

According to the article Ak drove the car to Bonneville and broke the E/Sports Racing record by over 25 mph - setting the new record at 171.56. This occurred in 1963. The car was powered by a 260 out of a Ford Falcon.

Crazy looking car with a large inverted funnel looking gizmo sticking out of the nose and bullet headlight covers.