AEC (Associated Equipment Company)
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 at works in Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, London. The X-type was followed by the B-type, considered to be one of the first mass-produced commercial vehicles.
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, or more commonly, AEC
A.E.C. and the Daimler Co Ltd merged in 1926 to form the short-lived Associated Daimler Co Ltd, coinciding with construction of the new works at Southall, west of London. The first Southall chassis were completed in early 1927 and over the next fifty-two years A.E.C. were leaders in the highly competitive field of commercial and passenger vehicle manufacture, responsible for classics such as the MATADOR artillery tractor.
In 1932, AEC took a controlling interest in the British subsidiary of the American Four Wheel Drive (FWD) company; these were marketed under the trade name Hardy.
In 1948 AEC acquired Crossley Motors and the Maudslay Motor Company and on 1 October 1948 AEC set up Associated Commercial Vehicles (ACV) Ltd. In 1961 ACV acquired Transport Equipment ( Thornycroft ).In 1961 Holding company for eight subsidiaries known as the ACV Group .

AEC also produced a larger 6x6 vehicle (model O854) based on the 4x4 Matador which were generally, if not officially, also called Matador.
AEC Matador was introduced in 1932. The name was most famously used for AEC's 4x4 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 AEC Militant - or "Milly" - was the 1952 replacement for the Matador, and continued in various forms until the 1970s.
The AEC road train was built by Hardy Motors a subsidiary of AEC (the Associated Equipment Company) for the British Overseas Mechanical Transport Directing Committee for heavy transport in remote regions of the British Empire.The road train consisted of an eight wheel drive tractor and two eight wheeled trailers. The first and last axles on the tractor steered in opposite directions giving good manoevrability. The trailers were self tracking in that the front and rear bogies also turned in opposite directions. By these means wheels on all twelve axles would follow each other in the same set of wheel tracks. This improved the road train's offroad ability, also "enabling a right angle turn to be made through a ten foot gate"
Âíåäîðîæíûå òðàñïîðòíûå ñðåäñòâà (Land Locomotion – Mechanical Vehicle Mobility LL-MVM) Home