"London Transport AEC Q type"

by Mike Jeffries

Mounted Laser Print

Image Size 11in x 8in

Nowadays, it is difficult to convey how strange a bus with no radiator or indication of an engine at the front looked in the early 1930’s to a public more used to a stately upright radiator and a half-cab in which the driver sat in solitary splendour.

Such was the Q type developed by Arthur Rackham at AEC whose inspiration for the concept of a side-mounted engine came from his time in the USA as chief engineer at the Yellow Coach Manufacturing Co. Ltd. The engine of a Q was mounted OUTSIDE the chassis on the offside behind the driver with a propellor shaft running in a straight line to the gearbox thence to the underslung differential offset to the extreme offside of the rear axle.

Here a Q type of London Transport threads its way though Clarence Street, Kingston-on Thames followed closely by the more conventional looking AEC Regal T type of Green Line sometime in the mid-fifties