AEC and the big beasts

Sunday 17 May 2015

AEC and the big beasts

AEC at Southall in West London, the manufacturer of the world famous London bus, turned its production in wartime to Matador and Marshall heavy trucks. These had all-wheel-drive chassis with six pairs of wheels powered by 120bhp engine through two gearboxes giving six speeds to all three axles. These beast were used, amongst other things, for transporting pipes for the construction of oil pipelines.

Design work on what became the Matador was carried out by Charles Cleaver of the Four Wheeled Drive Motor Company. AEC bought out FWD and Cleaver finished the design at the Southall Factory. The initial contract was for 200 trucks; by the end of the war 10,500 Matadors had been produced.

AEC also produced the six wheel drive model 850 which it developed from the FWD R6T. Only 57 of these beasts were produced by were used by the RAOC on occasions as temporary tank transporters.

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About me

Phil Hamlyn Williams's most recent project was the exploration of an assertion that Britain Created the Manufacturing World. The resulting books were published by Pen & Sword in 2022 and APS Books in December 2023.

Dunkirk to D Day - the stories of some of the RAOC men who fought in both world wars and who masterminded Ordnance supply for D Day, was published by Pen & Sword on 30 April.

His previous book, Ordnance, tells the story of the men and women who equipped the British Army for the Great War. It was published by The History Press in June 2018. His first book, War on Wheels, telling the story of the thousands of ordinary men and women who together worked to mechanise the British Army in WW2, was published by The History Press in September 2016. He wrote the story of the MacRobert's Reply collaborating with Story Terrace, published in December 2016. This is the story of an aeroplane, the woman who bought it and the men who flew it. He also wrote Charlotte Bronte's Devotee about William Smith Williams, the man who discovered and mentored Charlotte Bronte and a host of Victorian writers and artists. He writes family histories for Story Terrace and comments regularly on contemporary issues his own blogs. He is chair of trustees at The Lincoln Arts Trust which ran the Lincoln Drill Hall arts venue. He also chairs The Lincoln Book Festival.

He was awarded an MA in Professional Writing at University College Falmouth in 2009. He has been writing for fifteen years, having spent much of his career in professional services, most recently as a partner in Price Waterhouse, and in the not for profit sector.

Philip Hamlyn Williams - Historian

The final book of the trilogy on army supply

Sunday 17 May 2015

AEC and the big beasts

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