AEC

AEC was set up in 1912, after the Underground Group took over the London General Omnibus Company, to run the bus-building side. Its first commercial vehicle was a lorry based on the X-type bus chassis, and during the First World War it used moving-track assembly lines to make more than 10,000 Y-type lorries, becoming Britain’s largest supplier of lorries to the army. In 1927 it moved from Walthamstow to a new plant at Southall.

From 1929 chief engineer G. J. Rackham gave the range its reputation for quality and reliability, with lorries named M-models (Majestic, Mammoth, Mercury) and buses R-models (Regent, Regal, Renown). Diesel engines came in the mid-1930s, and AEC and English Electric co-produced trolleybuses from 1931 to 1938. The AEC name disappeared from commercial vehicles in 1977, and the last vehicles, including the last Routemasters, were completed by 1979.