Arrol-Johnston

The company also developed the world's first "off-road" vehicle for the Egyptian government, and another designed to travel on ice and snow for Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole.

[1] Johnston was commissioned by Glasgow Corporation Tramways in 1894 to build an experimental steam-powered tramcar to replace their fleet of horse-drawn trams.

Fulton was Johnston's cousin and was made responsible for manufacture and assembly, while Murray had electrical engineering experience, having been Works Manager with Mavor and Coulson, makers of mining machinery in Bridgeton.

[2] George Johnston had an experimental vehicle on the roads in November 1895, and there was an account in the Scotsman of a 3 hour journey in it, reputed to be the first Auto-Car to be seen in Scotland.

[6] The Dogcart was a wood-bodied vehicle powered by a 10 hp 2 cylinder opposed piston engine mounted beneath the floor, which was started by pulling on a rope.

In 1902 William Beardmore took the largest single shareholding in the company, creating a captive customer for his iron and steel components.

A 1905 Dogcart with solid wooden disc wheels still survives in Khartoum, inside the Sudan national museum, where it was supplied as a searchlight tender for the Sirdar of Egypt.

In 1907 Arrol-Johnston were engaged to produce a car for the British South Polar Expedition,[9] and it did make it to Antarctica, though it was of limited use except on hard ice, so it was restricted to the base camp areas.

This was the year that T. C. Pullinger (formerly of Darracq, Sunbeam and Humber) joined Arrol-Johnston; he swept out the old range in favour of the new 15·9 hp of 2835cc.

They introduced the model to agents in March 1919 but the first production car was not delivered until August; it was sold to the Prince of Wales.

The Victory sadly proved "unsellable and unreliable", and broke down while on a Royal tour of the West of England, so that the publicity attending its debut was not of the kind it needed.

[12] It was soon replaced by a modernized version of the prewar 15·9 hp; it was cheaper, but this was due to such cost-cutting measures as a black-painted radiator and fixed ignition.

Both the latter were given Burt-McCollum single sleeve valve engines in the interests of silence, but the 21/60 hp Aster was also available in its original ohv form, renamed the Arrol-Aster.

This was a fast car intended as a sports model, but unlike the French sleeve-valve designs it could not produce high outputs as revolutions were limited.