Thought the following snippet about vintage AC's would interest the forum.
Recently I was passed an old copy photo of a vintage AC parked on the rocks at Land’s End. On the back there is an interesting story, written by one Hubert Egerton. Here’s the text:
On Dec 23, 1900 I arrived at Land’s End from John o’Groat’s on my Locomobile Steam Car – thus completing the largest journey possible in the British Isles (the distance is approximately 900 miles).
On arrival at Penzance on the morning of Dec 23, 1900 I picked up a professional photographer and took him and his camera, and about a dozen plates, to Land’s End – amongst the set of photos taken was the one which is reproduced as a kind of ‘dream of old days’ in the sky on this photograph. A quarter of a century has passed since I was photographed in exactly the same position…at the time of writing no less than 33 years have elapsed-!
In this photograph I am seen at the wheel of an AC 16hp – 2 seater. I was, at the time, in the employ of the AC Motor Co. of Thames Ditton of which company my almost life-long friend, the late S. F. Edge, was Principal.
On a similar AC in the year 1926 I drove from Glion (high up in Montreux) on the lake of Geneva, Switzerland to Calais – 540 miles in 21 consecutive hours – the longest day’s run so far in my 46 years as a motorist – only once before did I cover 500 miles at one sitting and that was in 1898 on a 1¾ hp De Dion Bouton Quadricycle!!!
