It was on a visit to America in the late 1920s that Rackham noted the success of the 1927 Fageol Twin Coach which had won large sales to American operators.

The result was Rackham returned to the AEC works in Southall with the idea of implementing the American practice of side-mounted engines in British bus production.

In order to fit into the space, the engine was tilted to one side and the crankshaft rotated anti-clockwise.

One of the reasons was the Q's susceptibility to problems, the most worrying being that the carburettors on the petrol-engined models caught fire.

However, the vehicle was just too revolutionary for the conservative-minded bus industry, with the result was that the Q did not obtain the popularity of the other AEC models, so the project was dropped, last appearing in the 1937 catalogue.