The story
History
In 1903 the Weller brothers of West Norwood showed a 20 hp touring car at the Crystal Palace motor show.source 1source 2 John Weller, born in Peckham on 28 November 1877, was managing director and chief draughtsman of the family firm, which made motorcycle engines.source 3 Their backer was John Portwine, a West Norwood butcher who owned the London Suburban Meat Store chain, and he thought the tourer “would be too expensive to produce and encouraged Wellers to design and produce a little delivery 3-wheeler”.source 1source 4 RM Sotheby’s says it was to meet the delivery needs of his shops, and others, in crowded London.source 5
The Auto-Carrier went into production in 1904, built by a new company, Autocars and Accessories, at 42 Martell Road.source 6source 1 It was a three-wheeler with a large goods box between its two front wheels. The driver sat behind on a single seat and steered with a tiller; under him was an air-cooled single of 648 cc and 5 RAC hp, driving the single rear wheel by chain, and the rear hub held a two-speed epicyclic gear and the clutch.source 7source 8source 5 It was simple, and RM Sotheby’s says even inexperienced recruits could be trained on it quickly.source 5 It caught on quickly and made money, and it gave the company its name: Auto-Carrier, then A.C.source 1source 6source 2 Portwine’s obituary says it found a market as far away as Japan.source 4 Working tricars of its kind are the subject of micro vans and pick-ups.
He met young John Weller, an engineer and backed him financially… Their enterprise produced the cheap three-wheel tiller steered motor vehicle, first built in a West Norwood factory rented by John Portwine.
Passengers instead of parcels
The company became Auto Carriers Ltd in 1907, and that year a passenger version appeared, with a seat in place of the cargo box.source 6source 1 RM Sotheby’s gives the order of what followed. The first passenger tricars put one seat where the box had been, with the driver still behind; later ones, now called Sociables, had room for two passengers in front of him; and finally the controls moved to a two-seat bench, so that driver and passenger sat side by side, sociably.source 5 The seating moved forward, a sloping front protected the occupants’ legs, and a wood-framed hood was offered.source 8 Owners took them into reliability trials.source 8 One Sociable is said to have been timed at 47 mph (76 km/h) at Brooklands, but no date or driver is given.source 8
In 1911 the business moved to the Ferry Works at Thames Ditton, Surrey, which had been Willans and Robinson’s.source 1source 2 On 26 September that year the old company was wound up voluntarily and its business taken over as a going concern by Auto Carriers (1911) Ltd.source 1 The AC roundel dates from 1911, and the 1912 advertisements called the Sociable the “Mighty Atom”.source 2source 1
Olympia, 1912
At Olympia’s Motor Cycle and Cycle Car Show in November 1912, A.C. had stand 60. The first issue of The Cyclecar described its single of 95 × 102 mm, about 723 cc, against the 648 cc of earlier accounts, so the engine had probably grown. The gear was still in the back hub, with a single roller chain to the back axle; steering was by tiller, the tyres were 2½ in on all three wheels, and front-wheel brakes cost extra, the standard brakes being bands on the back wheel. The construction was the other way round from a car’s: “It has a frame of angle steel built into the body, and the chassis is erected on the body instead of the other way about.”source 9 AC showed eight vehicles that year, and The Auto Motor Journal called the Sociable “one of the most popular cycle cars on the road, both for pleasure and business”.source 2 The new magazine counted it a cyclecar, the oldest of the type, and drove it hard alongside the Morgan Three-Wheeler.
We have driven both the A.C. sociable, which has been before the public longer than any other type of cyclecar, and the Morgan three-wheeler at their top speeds, in traffic, and round right-angled corners, and have demonstrated that the tendency to skid is slight, while there is absolutely no propensity to turn over.
In 1913 a reader could find “A Fortnight’s Tour on a secondhand A.C.” in the same magazine,source 10 and AC built its first four-wheeled car.source 1source 2 English Wikipedia says the army used Sociables with bodies to carry a machine gun, citing only enthusiast sites.source 11
From tricar to Cobra
Passenger three-wheeler production ended in 1914, and in the war the Ferry Works made shells and fuses.source 1source 2source 6 The Auto-Carrier was built again for a time in the 1920s, and an advertisement for one appeared in March 1924.source 7source 1 Weller and Portwine left after Selwyn Edge took control in 1921–22, and the company became AC Cars Ltd in 1922.source 1source 2 The money the tricars made had paid for the move to Thames Ditton and for the first four-wheeler, the start of the line that leads to the Ace and the Cobra.source 1source 2 AC came back to three wheels after the Second World War, with invalid carriages and the AC Petite of 1953.source 1
