AC AC Ace (30's)& 16/hp Sports models
The 6 cylinder cars started in earnest with the Tourer. This is also the period during which the name Ace was first used in conjunction with AC Cars. Engines of the 16/56 and 16/66 class continued to be shipped thru 1933. Many were built in a sports format, two seaters with open coachwork. Records of the period indicate there were approximately 650 cars of the various models (16/56, 16/60, 16/66, 16/70, 16/80 and 16/90) manufactured thru the period of 1934 thru 1940.

Those of you who are non-Brits might be wondering, like I did for some time, just what the 16/56, 16/56 etc mean. There seems to be some obscure (to non-Brits) means of calculating horsepower for the purposes of taxing cars. I think this may be common in many European countries, so maybe I shouldn't limit this to just the Brits among us. Anyway, using something called the RAC formula, the hp rating of this 6 cylinder car comes out to be 16hp for tax purposes, while the actual power delivered from the engine is the second number. If anyone would like to send me an explaination of how this works I'd be glad to include a more detailed version here.


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