Sportscar maker AC is establishing its first US manufacturing base with a brand new car model.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
A new AC company has been established in the USA – AC Cars Manufacturing (USA), and will shortly commission a dedicated factory in Connecticut.
Work on the factory begins in summer and production is scheduled to start in autumn 2006, building models with bodies constructed of lightweight carbon fibre.
The models are the Ace, a modern successor to the lightweight British sports car which inspired the much more powerful Cobra in the 1960s, the Mamba, the first closed coupe version of the classic Cobra shape and the MK VI – an all new design which updates the Cobra.
Specification details have yet to be revealed although the new look car, in Cobra tradition, will be powered by a US-sourced, high output, V8.
The AC plant in Malta is currently focusing on US sales of another new model, the MK V – a carbon fibre-bodied Cobra look-alike which has superseded the CRS model.
The Malta operation will launch European and Asian sales of this model in the near future as production increases. Later, once the Ace, Mamba and MKVI go into production in the USA, they will also be built in Malta for Europe and Asia.
