I saw how gtk2.spec calls autotools, and I suggest the chages attached below.
Rationale:
1) the comment now reflects the current set of patches
2) autoheader calls autoconf, which reads aclocal.m4, so it is safer to call it
after aclocal-1.7
3) I suggest to remove the tricks with autoconf-2.53 and such, because
autoheader calls the default autoconf anyway, and having a mismatch of the
versions seem dangerous.

(No, I experienced no actual problems, I just think the above changes makes the
spec file less fragile.)