Michael Satterfield
TGR Staff
This unique car influenced the design of the AC Ace, the car that would become the Shelby Cobra, and is one of the first prototype race cars built by famed designer and race car builder John Tojeiro. The MG-powered Barchetta, known by its registration number LOW 77, this car was one of three specials built by Tojeiro using this body style. The other being LOY 501 and the other was Vin Davison’s LER 371, which was powered by a Lea-Francis engine.
Shortly after Tojeiro began working for Buckland Body Works, a supplier of bodies for AC. AC was interested in showing a new sportscar at the upcoming 1953 Earls Court motor show. Tojeiro convinced Vin Davison to loan him back LER 371 to be refitted with an AC engine, the car was then re-painted blue, re-registered it as TPL 792, and introduced as the all-new AC Ace Roadster. While the production version of the Ace would change from the prototype, it is easy to see the familial resemblance.
This car LOW 77 spent most of its life in Eastern England before being sold to C.L. Sieffert of Longmont, Colorado, and once in the United States, LOW 77 participated in the Colorado Grand and the Copperstate 1000 and was driven by Augie Pabst in the Steamboat Springs vintage races. The next owner was Texas-based enthusiast Richard Rome, from whom it was subsequently acquired by noted Chicago collector Bill Jacobs. Jacobs enjoyed the car in a variety of vintage races and road rallies; it was also featured in the January 2011 edition of Classic Motorsports. In more recent years, the Tojeiro has been campaigned on the California Mille twice, in 2014 and 2017.
This unique bit of automotive history is going to be crossing the block at RM Sotheby’s Arizona auction on January 22nd, 2021.
