Lea Francis Ace of Spades
Weird Car of the Day #390: 1980 Lea Francis Ace of Spades – Estate-Lea coupé
Who here has watched Old Top Gear, and could pick classic James May — Chris Goffey — out of a police line-up? And who here religiously trawls classified car listings, hoping to discover some completely odd, underpriced car, desperate to be saved?
Today, I have something special. Rarely do we ever get a weird car story so neatly bookended, at least for now: a high high, followed by an irrefutably downward trajectory.
Featured on Top Gear when new-ish in approximately 1987, the Lea Francis Ace of Spades wasn’t your typical neo-classic pretender. It was an honest attempt at resurrecting a fine British brand — with a teased sedan stablemate to come.
A twist is that Lea Francis’ new steward, Barrie Price, determined to uphold the marque’s storied tradition, encouraged his team to design as many components in-house as possible.
Kinda like BYD, except… Here, it was with vastly fewer resources, selling to a rapidly changing luxury car market, with the reality being a Lea Francis would be hand-made by necessity because it didn’t have modern production facilities behind it.
While sitting among these flames, I say: “This is fine”. This is because in that Top Gear report, Price courageously admitted:
“Oh, it’s a financial disaster, but one has to do something in this life…”
Respect.
