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Plenty of old sports cars claim racing pedigree. Few can back it up with a paper trail running from 1961 to 2003, then add a 2025 Mille Miglia start on top. A 1957 AC Ace Bristol now up for auction on Car & Classic can do both. Chassis BEX 374 spent 59 years with a single owner in Colorado. He raced it for most of that time, and every one of those results was written down.
The car is in Bad Aibling, Germany, and still wears the racing livery it was given in 1960. Pre-bidding is already open, the auction formally opens September 25, and it's scheduled to close October 3.
Before the Cobra, There Was the Ace
Most people come to the AC Ace backwards, through the Shelby Cobra. That makes sense, since Carroll Shelby's V8 monster was built on the Ace's tubular ladder frame. (If you want the Cobra side of the story, we covered 10 facts you might not know about the Shelby Cobra, along with the debate over whether one Ace prototype was the famed second Cobra.) The Ace was a winner well before anyone thought of dropping a Ford V8 into it, though.
AC built the Ace at Thames Ditton, starting with its own elderly 2.0-liter six. That engine made about 75 horsepower. The fix came in 1956, when AC started fitting Bristol's 1,971cc straight-six, a direct descendant of the prewar BMW 328 engine. With roughly 120 to 125 horsepower, the Ace Bristol could run 0-60 mph in a little over nine seconds and reach about 125 mph. It won all over the place. Aces took class wins at Le Mans, and in the U.S. they took SCCA national titles, winning so often that the club moved them up a class twice.
Only a few hundred Ace Bristols were built before Bristol stopped making the six-cylinder. Today they're some of the most desirable British sports-racers you can buy, and they're eligible for the events collectors care about most.
Nearly Six Decades in One Garage
BEX 374 left the factory on November 6, 1957, bound for AC Imports in Arlington, Virginia. It was originally white with red trim. Its first owner, M. J. Brewer of Elmira, New York, kept it until 1960. That's when it went to Jerry Lynch of Boulder, Colorado, who would own it until 2019.
Lynch didn't park it. The documented race history starts with a regional event at Vineland in August 1961 and includes several runs at Watkins Glen in 1963, one of them a second-place finish. After a break, the car came back to vintage racing at the 1978 Monterey Historics. Through the 1980s, '90s, and early 2000s it raced at Steamboat, Mountain View, Copper Mountain, the Pacific Northwest Historics, and a return to Monterey in 1999. Its last listed race was in July 2003.
The third owner brought the car to the UK in 2019 and sent it to AC Heritage. Over £30,000 went into the chassis, engine, steering, brakes, and electrical system. AC Heritage kept the factory interior and the 1960 racing livery, which were the right things to keep. A German enthusiast bought the car in July 2024 and has since spent another €50,000 on servicing and sorting, with invoices and photos to show for it. After that, he used it the way it was meant to be used: the 2024 Nuvolari, the 2025 Mille Miglia, and the 2025 Nuvolari. (If you've ever wondered what it takes to get into Brescia's famous event, here's our guide on how to get an entry on the Mille Miglia.)
Built to Race, Papers Included
The seller says the Bristol six is original to the car, and it's paired with a four-speed manual. This is also a left-hand-drive car. Over the years it has been fitted with the kind of upgrades a car that's still racing needs:
- Dual-circuit brakes with new calipers
- Uprated competition rear hubs
- Uprated radiator, Kenlowe fan, and oil cooler
- Foam-filled fuel tank and lightweight battery
- Front anti-roll bar
- MWS wire wheels on Avon tires
The paperwork may be worth as much as the hardware. BEX 374 has FIA papers in class GTS6 that are good through 2031, a FIVA identity card, an HTP pass, and Registro 1000 Miglia eligibility valid until September 30, 2028. It was also a reserve entry for the 2022 and 2023 Mille Miglia. The car comes with weather gear, several tonneau covers, a removable roll bar, and a racing aero screen, plus a history file that covers the ownership chain, mechanical work, period photos, and the restoration. The odometer reads 13,645 miles.
What Hagerty Says an Ace Bristol Is Worth
Hagerty's Valuation Tools are a good place to start for pricing. As of Hagerty's July 2026 price guide, a 1957 AC Ace roadster with the Bristol six is valued at:
- #1 Concours: $384,000
- #2 Excellent: $300,000
- #3 Good: $218,000
- #4 Fair: $166,000
Values have been flat for the past year, and the #3 figure is down about 4.8% over three years. Prices are also off their 2021 peak, when Hagerty had a concours Ace Bristol at $430,000. Hagerty points out that Ace prices climbed along with the Cobra boom, and the best examples are no longer the cheap way into a Cobra they once were. Still, the gap is huge. Hagerty values a 1964 Shelby Cobra 289 at $851,000 in #3 condition and $1.25 million at the top. For a collector who wants the car the Cobra grew out of, with the same basic chassis and a sweet-sounding straight-six, the Ace costs roughly a quarter to a third as much.
BEX 374 doesn't fit neatly into one of those condition ratings, and that's on purpose. The seller describes it as a car that wears its age honestly, not a trailer queen. Buyers here will care less about paint than about the things the price guide can't measure: matching numbers, one owner for 59 years, a documented race record, and FIA and Mille Miglia papers that are ready to go. For historic racers, eligibility like that can mean more than any concours score. You can see how other Aces have done in our coverage of a 1958 Ace-Bristol roadster on Bring a Trailer, a 1960 Ace Bristol that's one of 14 like it, and a 1962 AC Bristol known as Los Angeles' portside racer.
The Car & Classic listing says BEX 374 is ready to take its next owner "straight to the start line." Considering this car has been on a start line in almost every decade since it was new, that's easy to believe.
