Equipment
LHD. 428 cid Ford V8, 4-speed, limited-slip, Halibrand wheels.
Condition
Rare configuration. Spent time in the UK and Switzerland before being restored in the U.S. during the 1990s and winning its class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 1995. It has the nicks and blemishes inevitable on a 30-year-old restoration, but still looks lovely
Market commentary
In a lot of ways, the 428 made a lot of sense. The tubular chassis, hand-fabricated on the jigs originally used for the Cobras, was a race-proven unit that AC stretched by 6 inches for added space and stability. Independent suspension on all four corners helped keep the car planted. The engine was a 7-liter V-8 borrowed from Dearborn’s Ford Galaxie and rated at 345hp and 462 lb-ft of torque. Because Italian styling is almost never a bad idea, AC enlisted the services of Pietro Frua, who had penned the Renault Caravelle, the Swiss Monteverdi, and the Maserati Mistral. Frua did recycle a lot of his ideas from the Maserati, to the point that a 428 and a Mistral are difficult to tell apart, but you know what they say about imitation and flattery. They’re both gorgeous. The 428, then, offered the looks and performance of a Ferrari, the running costs of a Yankee commuter car, the interior trimmings of an English luxury GT, and a legendary race car chassis. But despite all that, it wasn’t exactly a winning recipe. Labor unrest in Italy and challenges securing engines from Ford meant that AC’s two main suppliers were unreliable. And even when things were going right, the 428 was expensive to build—a common problem with cars bodied in Italy but assembled somewhere else. The 428 was comfortably more expensive than an Aston Martin DB6 and roughly twice as much as an E-Type Jaguar. The energy crisis in 1973 also hit Britain fairly hard, and a 16-mpg high-dollar performance car was a tough sell. In the end, only 81 examples of the AC 428 left Thames Ditton. Most were coupes and most came in RHD, while a decent number came with a 3-speed manual. That makes this one, one of about 30 Spiders and configured in both LHD and with a 4-speed, quite special. Almost all of the 428s to hit the market over the past couple of years have been coupes, automatics, RHD, in scruffy condition, or some combination of the above. This $417K price is a market-leading result, but it's a lot of car for the money. The cars this green over tan beauty competed with in 1970 are significantly more expensive. Think of it like a half-priced Cobra in an Italian suit.