AEC Trucks and Lorries

AEC – Associated Equipment Company

Associated Equipment Company (AEC)

Industry	Automotive
Fate	Renamed AEC Ltd. upon the establishment of the holding company ACV Ltd.
Founded	1912
Defunct	1979
Headquarters	Southall, Greater London, England
Products	Lorries, buses, motorcoaches
Parent	Leyland Motor Corporation (1962–1968) British Leyland Motor Corporation (1968–1975) British Leyland Ltd (1975–1979)

AEC Buses:

https://myntransportblog.com/2013/10/28/buses-aec-associated-equipment-company-ltd-england-uk/

AEC Regent

As­so­ci­ated Equip­ment Company (AEC) was a British ve­hi­cle man­u­fac­turer that built buses, mo­tor­coaches and lor­ries from 1912 until 1979. The name “As­so­ci­ated Equip­ment Com­pany” was hardly ever used; in­stead it traded under the AEC and ACLO brands.

AEC Routemaster

While fa­mously as­so­ci­ated with Lon­don’s AEC Routemas­ter buses, AEC sup­plied com­mer­cial ve­hi­cles to many com­pa­nies, both do­mes­ti­cally and around the world.

History

Inception

LGOC-X type

The Lon­don Gen­eral Om­nibus Com­pany, or LGOC, was founded in 1855 to amal­ga­mate and reg­u­late the horse-drawn om­nibus ser­vices then op­er­at­ing in Lon­don. The com­pany began pro­duc­ing motor om­nibuses for its own use in 1909 with the X-type de­signed by its chief motor en­gi­neer, Frank Searle, at works in Black­horse Lane, Waltham­stow, Lon­don. The X-type was fol­lowed by Searle’s B-type de­sign, con­sid­ered to be one of the first mass-pro­duced com­mer­cial vehicles.

1911 LGOC B-Type bus B340 London Transport Museum

In 1912, LGOC was taken over by the Un­der­ground Group of com­pa­nies, which at that time owned most of the Lon­don Un­der­ground, and ex­ten­sive tram op­er­a­tions. As part of the re­or­gan­i­sa­tion fol­low­ing the takeover, a sep­a­rate con­cern was set up for the bus man­u­fac­tur­ing el­e­ments, and was named As­so­ci­ated Equip­ment Com­pany, bet­ter-known as AEC.A 1921 AEC S-type Bus at the Heritage Motor Centre

AEC’s first com­mer­cial ve­hi­cle was a lorry based on the X-type bus chas­sis. With the out­break of the First World War in 1914, AEC’s abil­ity to pro­duce large num­bers of ve­hi­cles using as­sem­bly line meth­ods be­came im­por­tant in sup­ply­ing the in­creas­ing need for army lor­ries. AEC began large-scale pro­duc­tion of the 3-ton Y-type lorry, com­menced in 1916, and con­tin­ued be­yond the end of the war. From then on, AEC be­came as­so­ci­ated with both lor­ries and buses.

Interwar years

In 1926, AEC and Daim­ler formed the As­so­ci­ated Daim­ler Company (ADC), which was dis­solved two years later. In 1927, AEC moved its man­u­fac­tur­ing from Waltham­stow to a new plant at Southall in Mid­dle­sex.AEC Southall Works from the south, 1973

AEC Southall Works from the north, 1973

G. J. Rack­ham was ap­pointed Chief En­gi­neer and De­signer in 1928. He had pre­vi­ously worked for Ley­land Mo­tors. His ideas con­tributed sig­nif­i­cantly to AEC’s rep­u­ta­tion for qual­ity and re­li­a­bil­ity.1962-built AEC Mercury

From 1929, AEC pro­duced new mod­els: the names of lor­ries began with “M” (Ma­jes­tic, Mam­moth, Mer­cury, and so on), and those of buses began with “R” (Re­gent, Regal, Renown, and so on). These orig­i­nal “M-mod­els” con­tin­ued in pro­duc­tion until the end of the Sec­ond World War. AEC in­tro­duced diesel en­gines across the range in the mid-1930s.

From 1931 to 1938, AEC and Eng­lish Elec­tric co-pro­duced trol­ley­buses. AEC sup­plied the chas­sis, and EE the elec­tric mo­tors and con­trol equip­ment.

In 1932, AEC took a con­trol­ling in­ter­est in the British sub­sidiary of the Amer­i­can Four Wheel Drive(FWD) com­pany, and began to use more stan­dard AEC com­po­nents in those ve­hi­cles. To avoid con­fu­sion, these were mar­keted under the name Hardy. Pro­duc­tion ceased about 1936.

Second World War

Non-mil­i­tary pro­duc­tion stopped in 1941, from then until 1944 AEC pro­duced nearly 10,000 ve­hi­cles for the war ef­fort Road Trans­port Archives Dur­ing the war, AEC pro­duced their

10-ton 4×4 Mata­dor ar­tillery trac­tor (an adap­ta­tion of their com­mer­cial 4×2 Mata­dor lorry that ex­ploited AEC’s ex­pe­ri­ence with the Hardy FWD ven­ture).AEC 850 6 x 6 artillery tractor of 15 AA Battery towing a 3-inch AA gun on the cruciform travelling platform.

A 6×6 ver­sion was des­ig­nated as the AEC Mar­shall but al­most al­ways called the Mata­dor. To this they added theAEC Armoured Car Mk I

AEC Mk III Armoured Car

AEC Ar­moured Car in 1941. Other uses of the Mata­dor chas­sis were the Dea­con self-pro­pelled anti-tank gun ve­hi­cle, used briefly in North Africa; and theAEC Ar­moured Com­mand Ve­hi­cle, pop­u­larly known as the Dorch­ester.

AEC 6×6 Armoured Command Vehicle

Post war

A 1957 AEC Regent V

In 1946 AEC and Ley­land Mo­tors formed British United Trac­tion Ltd (BUT) as a joint ven­ture to man­u­fac­ture trol­ley­buses and trac­tion equip­ment for diesel rail­cars since re­duced de­mand would not re­quire the ex­ist­ing ca­pac­ity of both par­ents.

In 1946 AEC re­sumed civil­ian pro­duc­tion with the 0661/20 Re­gent II and the 0662/20 Regal I. These were not new mod­els but a recom­mence­ment of the most basic AEC 1939 spec­i­fi­ca­tion bus mod­els. The sin­gle-decker was going to be mar­keted as Regal II until some­body at Southall re­mem­bered the 1936-8 light­weight 0862 model of that name and as a re­sult the name was cor­rected after the launch pub­lic­ity had been printed. At the end of 1946 the post­war 0961 RT was in build and by 1948 Mam­moth Major, Mata­dor and Monarch Mk IIIs were in pro­duc­tion, fol­lowed by the ‘provin­cial’ Re­gent III and the Regal III. Also in 1948 AEC ac­quired Cross­ley Mo­tors and the Maud­slay Motor Com­pany and on 1 Oc­to­ber 1948 AEC set up As­so­ci­ated Com­mer­cial Ve­hi­cles (ACV) Ltd. as the hold­ing com­pany for the newly ac­quired busi­nesses and its own man­u­fac­tur­ing firm, which was re­named AEC Ltd. The ini­tials “AEC” re­mained on its ve­hi­cles, with the ex­cep­tion of some badge-en­gi­neered ver­sions, such as the Cross­ley Re­gent bus (one ex­am­ple of which may be seen at the North West Mu­seum of Road Trans­port). In 1949 ACV ac­quired the (bus) coach­build­ing com­pany Park Royal Ve­hi­cles, along with its sub­sidiary Charles H. Roe. Park Royal de­signed a new cab for the AEC Mer­cury in the mid-1950s, which ap­peared on all mod­els across the range about this time.

In 1961 ACV ac­quired Trans­port Equip­ment (Thorny­croft). Thorny­croft’s name dis­ap­peared from all the ve­hi­cles ex­cept the spe­cial­ist air­port crash ten­ders, such as the Nu­bian, and the “Mighty” Antar off-road trac­tor unit. The AEC Dumptruk was trans­ferred to Bas­ingstoke, and the Thorny­croft six-speed con­stant-mesh gear­box and later nine- and ten-speed range-change ver­sions were fit­ted to AEC, Ley­land and Al­bion buses and lor­ries.

The AEC en­gines were used in Finnish Vanaja lor­ries and buses in the 1960s.

Leyland takeover

Ley­land Mo­tors Ltd ac­quired ACV in 1962. AEC lor­ries were given the same “Er­go­matic” cabs used across sev­eral Ley­land mar­ques (in­clud­ing Al­bion). In 1968, all AEC dou­ble-decker buses ceased pro­duc­tion, and its last buses, mo­tor­coaches and lor­ries were built in 1979. The AEC name ac­tu­ally dis­ap­peared from com­mer­cial ve­hi­cles in 1977, but the Ley­land Marathon was built at the Southall plant until British Ley­land (as the par­ent com­pany was named by then) closed it in 1979.

Foreign operations

ACLO

ACLO (sup­posed to be the acronym of Asso­ci­ated Com­pany Lor­ries and Omnibuses) was the brand name used by AEC in Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries, in­clud­ing Brazil, and in Spain (but not in Por­tu­gal) to sell all their prod­ucts.

It seems that there was no clear rea­son for this badge en­gi­neer­ing op­er­a­tion, al­though a for­mal re­quest from the Ger­man AEG in­dus­trial group, which was very ac­tive in the Span­ish-speak­ing coun­tries, has been sug­gested. This is quite likely as the AEC 422 NS type ex­ported to BVOAG Berlin was also badged ACLO.

ACLOs were spe­cially per­va­sive in Ar­gentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Par­tic­u­larly in Uruguay, there were two ACLO fleets. They were in­ter­est­ing buses, quite faster than Ley­land Tiger in use by other fleets. It was said at the time (early ’60s) that the main rea­son was in­ter-ur­ban gear­ing in­stead of purely urban gear­ing pre­sent in Ley­lands. An in­ter­est­ing fea­ture was pre­s­e­lec­tor gear-change, sim­i­lar to those in Ley­land buses, com­manded by a small­ish gated lever in­stalled by the steer­ing wheel, with a re­versed gate, with first gear to the right and up, and fourth gear to the bot­tom and left.

In Spain, ACLOs could be seen mainly as dou­ble-deck buses in Barcelona, and as line coaches in ALSA fleet.

UTIC-AEC

In Por­tu­gal, the AEC ve­hi­cles, mainly coaches and buses but also lor­ries, were as­sem­bled and bod­ied by União de Trans­porta­dores para Im­portação e Comércio, UTIC, a large coach­build­ing firm based in Lis­bon, and mar­keted under the UTIC-AEC badge, for many years.

From 1971-3 the Lough­bor­ough based dealer Moseley im­ported nine UTIC U2043 coaches which were mar­keted as the Mose­ley Con­ti­nen­tal Tagus. They were me­chan­i­cally equiv­a­lent to a rear-en­gined Re­liance or a coach ver­sion of the Swift 691 which AEC had planned but never mar­keted. They were ex­pen­sive to buy new and the square sided styling looked dated to British eyes in the age of the Elite and Dom­i­nant coaches, thus they were slow sell­ing. These were prob­a­bly the only right hand drive coaches built by UTIC. At the time Mose­ley also mar­keted Sal­vador Cae­tano Coaches under its own name.

Barreiros AEC

In the late fifties, Span­ish gov­ern­ment re­stric­tions on im­ports re­duced AEC sales in Spain to vir­tu­ally nil. As a con­se­quence, AEC ap­proached a Span­ish truck man­u­fac­turer, Bar­reiros Diesel, to jointly pro­duce buses and coaches based on AEC de­signs. The ven­ture started in 1961, used Bar­reiros AEC as brand name, dis­re­gard­ing ACLO, and seemed very promis­ing; pro­duc­tion of the AEC off-road dump trucks being planned too. Nev­er­the­less, the Ley­land takeover in 1962 soon un­der­mined the agree­ment, as Ley­land was part­ner­ing with Bar­reiros’s Span­ish arch-ri­val, Pe­gaso; and even­tu­ally Bar­reiros looked for an­other col­lab­o­ra­tor in the bus arena, sign­ing in 1967 an agree­ment with Bel­gian – Dutch com­pany Van Hool.

Vehicles

A preserved AEC Renown, previously run by King Alfred Motor Services.

Buses

Main article: List of AEC buses

Lorries and other commercial vehicles

Mammoth Major Tanker

Majestic

The 6 ton nor­mal-con­trol AEC Ma­jes­tic (Model 666) was in­tro­duced in 1930.

Mammoth

The AEC Mam­moth dates from the 1930s. This was a 7/8 ton lorry with a six-cylin­der over­head valve en­gine de­vel­op­ing 110 bhp (82 kW) on a wheel­base of 16 ft 7 in.

Later a dis­tinc­tion was made be­tween the Mam­moth Minor (6×2, with two front axles), the Mam­moth Major 6 (6×4) and the Mam­moth Major 8 (8×2 or 8×4), which ap­peared in 1934. The Mam­moth Major Mk II was in­tro­duced in 1935; the eight-wheeler could carry 15-ton loads. It re­mained in pro­duc­tion until 1948 when it was su­per­seded by the Mk III, which was me­chan­i­cally sim­i­lar, but had the Park Royal cab.

Mammoth Minor:AEC MAMMOTH MINOR GXF70

 GXF 70 HVD 318D

Mammoth Major 6:

1959-1966 AEC Mammoth Major 6 Mk V G6RA

Mammoth Major 8:

1939 AEC Mammoth Major 8 Mk II BEW605

Mandator

AEC Mandator MkV ( model G4 ) 9500

The AEC Manda­tor dates from the 1930s. The post-war Mk II was avail­able as a lorry and a trac­tor unit and the name was used for trac­tor units built from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Marshal

Pre-war 6×4 3ton lorry-There was a mil­i­tary ver­sion with var­i­ous body styles- some were em­ployed by the Royal Air Force as cranes (using the Coles Crane) See also: Matador

1960s-70s.

Matador

The orig­i­nal

AEC Mata­dor five-ton 4×2 com­mer­cial lorry was in­tro­duced in 1932. The name was most fa­mously used for AEC’s 4×4 Mata­dor ar­tillery trac­tor, which were known by the nick­name “Mat”. These ve­hi­cles ex­ploited AEC’s ex­pe­ri­ence with four-wheel drive that it had gained from its in­volve­ment in the British Four Wheel Drive ve­hi­cles mar­keted under the name Hardy.

The Mata­dor name is very often used for the 6×6 mil­i­tary ve­hi­cles that are more prop­erly des­ig­nated the 0854. These were an ex­tended Mata­dor chas­sis, mated to a ‘Mar­shall’ dou­ble-drive bogie

AEC pro­duced 9,620 ar­tillery trac­tors; 514 6×6 bowsers for the Royal Air Force; 192 6×6 lor­ries (some of which had Coles Cranes mounted); and 185 sim­i­lar ve­hi­cles, but 6×4, for mo­bile oxy­gen plants. Many mil­i­tary Mata­dors were adapted for post-war com­mer­cial use, es­pe­cially as tim­ber lor­ries and re­cov­ery ve­hi­cles.

There was a short run of the 0853 4×4 Mata­dor in the early fifties, due to on­go­ing is­sues with the in­tro­duc­tion of the re­place­ment Ley­land.

New civil­ian Mata­dors ap­peared after the war.

Mercury

The AEC Mer­cury (Model 440) was first built in 1928. This was a for­ward-con­trol lorry with a wheel­base of 14 ft (4.3 m) for 4 ton pay­loads. The Model 640 was in­tro­duced in 1930, with a four-cylin­der petrol en­gine de­vel­op­ing 65 bhp.

A 1970 AEC Mercury

The name was res­ur­rected for lor­ries built from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Militant

The AEC Mil­i­tant – or “Milly” – was the 1952 re­place­ment for the Mata­dor, and con­tin­ued in var­i­ous forms until the 1970s. (The orig­i­nal Mil­i­tant had been pro­duced by Maud­slay in the 1930s.)

Mogul

The AEC Mogul was a nor­mal-con­trol trac­tor unit from the 1960s. The name had orig­i­nally been used on Maud­slay lor­ries.

Monarch

The orig­i­nal AEC Monarch was built from 1931 to 1939 at AEC’s Southall works. The first ver­sion (Model 641) was su­per­seded by the Mk II (Model 637) in 1933, with pay­load in­creased to 7½ tons. The Monarch was fit­ted with ei­ther an 85 hp (63 kW) four-cylin­der 5.1-litre diesel en­gine or an 80 hp four-cylin­der 5.1-litre petrol en­gine. This was a ro­bust and well-de­signed lorry, pop­u­lar with both dri­vers and op­er­a­tors. Later vari­ants con­tin­ued into the 1970s.

 TL 3513 (1934) KYE 402 (1949)

The Monarch name was res­ur­rected for ex­port ver­sions of the Mer­cury built from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Mustang

1950s

Model 201

Model 428

Model 501 & 506

Model 701

Y Type

AEC’s first pur­pose-built com­mer­cial ve­hi­cle was in­tro­duced in 1916. The im­proved YA Type ap­peared in 1917. More than ten thou­sand of these ve­hi­cles were sup­plied to the War De­part­ment by 1919. Many of these were ac­quired by civil­ian op­er­a­tors fol­low­ing the war. YB and YC Types con­tin­ued in pro­duc­tion until 1921.

Railcar engines

Main articles: GWR railcars, British Rail British United Traction, and AEC railmotor

Centenary celebrations

2012 was the cen­te­nary of the found­ing of AEC Ltd, and to mark this, a num­ber of events took place through­out the year. By far the biggest was hosted by The AEC So­ci­ety, and was held over the week­end of 26 and 27 May 2012 at Newark Show­ground in Not­ting­hamshire. It was the biggest ever gath­er­ing of AEC’s, and over 225 AEC ve­hi­cles at­tended as well as over 350 ve­hi­cles of other mar­ques. It was the biggest rally ever held by The AEC So­ci­ety and as well as glo­ri­ous weather all week­end, was closed by a BBMF fly­past.

See also

AEC bus in Malta

• Crossley Motors
• Daimler
• Guy Motors
• Leyland Motors

References

1. ^ “From omnibus to ecobus, 1829-1850”. London Transport Museum. Archived from the original on 9 June 2007. Retrieved 3 July 2007.
2. ^ “From omnibus to ecobus, 1919-1938, 4th page”. London Transport Museum. Archived from the original on 9 June 2007. Retrieved 3 July 2007.
3. ^ “From omnibus to ecobus, 1919-1938, 3rd page”. London Transport Museum. Archived from the original on 8 June 2007. Retrieved 3 July 2007.
4. ^ “Contact Us - Moseley Coach Sales”. Retrieved 6 October 2014.

External links

AEC (Associated Equipment Company).

• AEC Society
• Remembering AEC
• The AEC Bus Site
• AEC Matador and Militant Owners Club
• The British/Portuguese UTIC AEC Coaches
• Page on ALSA’s ACLO buses
• Home of a famous Militant Mk1
• Catalogue of the AEC archives, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick

AEC vehicle model range

Buses

a blog about AEC Buses I made in 2013:

Buses AEC Associated Equipment Company Ltd England UK

Trucks

AEC Southall Models

I can’t find any pictures on the WWW about AEC 4G6

• 4G6

AEC 10 Ton Knocker

AEC Mandator 10Ton 4×2 Tractor (1493RN)

AEC made also Railcars and some of them are also called 10, so I show you some pictures:

1938 AEC 10-ton diesel railcar

1955-fwk-som-10rm 102hp Walker 10RM substitutes for the regular AEC railmotor between Fawkner and Somerton

AEC RAIL MOTOR No.10

AEC Dumptruck 10 cu yd ( model 3673M )

• 10

AEC 18 cu yd ‘Dumptruck

• 18

Also nothing to find about AEC 201

• 201

It’s impossible to know what they mean by AEC 428. I can’t find anything than numberplates with 428.

• 428
• 501

AEC 506 ENGINE. SAME AS A 505 BUT A LATER ENGINE

• 506

AEC 691T = a trolleybus from 1933

• 691
• 692

• 701
• 1100

• Majestic
• Mammoth
• Mammoth Major
• Mandator
• Marshall
• Matador
• Mercury
• Militant
• Mammoth Minor 6
• Mammoth Minor 8
• Mogul
• Monarch
• Mustang
• TG6
• Y Type

Engines

• AEC 9.6L
• AEC 11.3L

Related companies

• ACLO
• Barreiros AEC
• British Leyland
• British United Traction
• Charles H Roe
• Crossley Motors
• Maudslay Motor Company
• Park Royal Vehicles
• Thornycroft
• UTIC-AEC

I will give you my complete collection that I gathered in the last years on the World Wide Web.

1961 aec matador mkII 4gm4ra k1

That was it what AEC Truck concerning. The buses can you find on another blog about AEC Buses made earlier in 2013.

https://myntransportblog.com/2013/10/28/buses-aec-associated-equipment-company-ltd-england-uk/

Buses AEC Associated Equipment Company Ltd England UK

Bussen AEC

AEC Regal IV 9822E 1953

AEC Reliance new in 1957 Plaxton Consort C41C bodied

Nu een fantastisch en groot hoofdstuk over een enorme busfabrikant.

AEC 1927 autocar

AEC buses and coaches, advert, 1947

AEC – Den Oudsten en zn, Woerden 1956

AEC 2MU3RV Reliance with Plaxton Highway DP41F body was new in 1961

AEC  Regal 0662

AEC 4U3RA Reliances Duple Northern Dragonfly C48C body.

AEC Regal III with Mann Egerton B31F body 1948

aec matador articulated bus australië 10581

AEC 661T with an English Electric H60R body, altered to H58R about 1936, and was rebodied with an NCB H30-26R body in 1946

AEC 1921 MoTr- AEC2

AEC RT 115 pk 1945

AEC 1930 ERBT-AEC1

AEC Reliance with Alexander bodywork 1959

AEC Regal MkIII AEC A217 carr Verheul GTW 340 1951

AEC Reliance with Willowbrook Viking C41F bodywork of 1958

AEC Regent V 2D3RA 6208-KWMetro Cammell H40-30F 1964

AEC-van Twist Regal Mark IV 9831 E Verheul Waddinxveen 1955

Het gaat over AEC, Associated Equipment Company Ltd. http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEC  (autobus- en vrachtwagenmerk) In Engeland een bus en vrachtwagenfabrikant, in Amerika alleen stond AEC voor Amerikaans Electric Car, een fusie tussen Argo, Broc en Borland in 1916, maar een lang leven hadden ze niet en in 1919 sloot het bedrijf haar poorten al. Pas de laatste 10 jaar word er weer uitgebreid gekeken of electrische auto’s echt iets van een vervanging kunnen betekenen, maar meer vanwege de dure olie en het feit dat dit vaak bij spanningen tot machtsmiddel gemaakt word. Ook in Nederland hebben talloze AEC bussen en vrachtwagens rondgereden. Vaak met een Nederlandse opbouw, vaak van Verheul, den Oudsten en dergelijke. Bij de foto’s zal ik voor zover mogelijk en bekend die bouwer ook noemen. De kwaliteit van sommige foto’s is niet best, maar vergeet niet dat ze soms stammen uit het begin van de vorige eeuw. Ook AEC vrachtwagens hebben hier rondgereden, maar die komen bij het hoofdstuk Trucks uitgebreid terug. Wel hebben er hier na de tweede wereldoorlog betrekkelijk veel AEC’s rondgereden. Voor de rest ga ik niet meer foto’s invoegen. Wil je meer AEC’s zien moet je even naar  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3716178709346.2176584.1422084541&type=1&aft=3716426435539&l=747efbdf4d

AEC 107 Haagsche Tramweg Maatschappij

Labels: AEC, Alexander, Bussen, Den Oudsten, DUPLE, Englisch Electric, Mann Egerton, Matador, Metro-Cammell, Plaxton, Trolleybussen, Verheul, Willowbrook