1928 AC 16/56 Six

The Weller brothers of West Norwood, London displayed a 20 HP touring car at the 1903 Crystal Palace Motor Show. John Portwine, their financial backer and business manager, convinced the brothers to build a less expensive model that would cater to a wider audience of buyers. In 1903, the Autocars and Accessories company was formed and its first product was a three-wheeler called the Auto-Carrier. A passenger version arrived a few years later, dubbed the A.C. Sociable.

The AutoCarrier was powered by a 5 RAC horsepower air-cooled T-head single-cylinder engine positioned beneath the driver's seat and driving the single rear wheel via a chain. The driving wheel hub housed a clutch and two-speed epicyclic gearbox. The design was simple, effective, and inexpensive, offering its owners a reliable and effective means of transportation on the cobblestone streets of early twentieth-century London.

The company's first four-wheeled car arrived in 1913. It offered seating for two and its gearbox was located on the rear axle. Not many were built before the outbreak of World War I. In support of the war effort, the Ferry Works factory was converted to shell and fuse production, and at least one vehicle was designed and built for the War Office. When peacetime resumed, the company returned to making motor vehicles again, eventually expanding into an old balloon factory on Thames Ditton High Street.

By the close of the 1910s, John Weller had designed a new overhead-cam six-cylinder engine that would remain with the company, in various guises and configurations, through 1963. Prior to the John Weller-designed OHC engine, the company had relied on proprietary four-cylinder engines. The four-cylinder AC chassis featured quarter-elliptic springing front and rear, a three-speed gearbox in unit with the rear axle, and a worm final drive. Following the introduction of the OHC six, the company would continue four-cylinder AC production through 1928, relying exclusively on the Weller six thereafter.

Selwyn Francis Edge was a successful bicycle racer who had worked for Rudge and Dunlop before taking on the De Dion Bouton agency with fellow pioneers Charles Jarrott and Herbert Duncan. His collaboration and racing involvement with Montague Napier during the first decade of the 20th century brought both successes. In 1900, C.S. Rolls joined Edge as a riding mechanic in a Napier for the Paris-Toulouse race - although they failed to finish.

S.F. Edge would become an influential and important individual of early 'automobiling' in Great Britain. After selling out to Napier in 1912, Edge fulfilled a seven-year non-compete agreement by following another passion - gardening/farming. He became a successful pig breeder in Sussex and Controller of the Agricultural Machinery Division of the Ministry of Munitions in 1917, acquiring an AC for his commute to and from London.

When Edge returned to the automobile industry in 1919, following his fulfillment of the non-compete agreement, he began to buy into AC, joining the board in 1921 and quickly becoming chairman in 1922. Founders John Weller and John Portwine did not agree with Edge's leadership and dictation and soon sold out. Under Edge's reign, a series of revised and new models ensued and the company's name was changed to AC Carts Ltd. in 1922.

The forthcoming cars were not exceptional, but they were competitive and well-built, establishing various class records often over great distances. In May of 1924, T.G. Gillett drove a 2-liter AC at Montlhéry to a continuous 24-hour record. The Monte Carlo Rally was won by the Honourable Victor Bruce in his 2-liter AC in 1926. The following year, Victor Bruce and his wife Mildred, set a ten-day endurance record at Montlhery in an AC six.

In 1927, the company was acquired outright by Selwyn Edge but sales continued to decline and the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 sent the company into voluntary liquidation. Production ceased but later resumed after it had been acquired by the Hurlock family who ran a successful haulage business. They wanted the High Street factory only as a warehouse. Limited automobile production resumed in 1930.

by Daniel Vaughan | Dec 2021