AEC V8

Many years ago, I saw a yard full of very rusty and sad AEC trucks at Miners Rest in Vicrtoria. One had an AEC V8. This required a widened part of the chassis to cater for the very wide motor as the Ergomatic cab had a flat floor and was advertised as a three-man cab. Recently, I tried to find them and the area had been sub-divided and covered with houses.
Does anybody know what happened to the trucks? I hope they did not go for scrap.

They are a pretty rare thing as the factory bought most of them back. There is one in NZ and a few V8 engines in WA from the Sabre coaches but that is about it for this side of the world.

There is one in a coach in Sydney ...motor was running and drivable ,but not on the road when I saw it..........from what Ive seen ,AEC just copied the V8 Perkins .

Nothing like a Perkins. It was a ground up design and although issues were known by the techs developing it Leyland management insisted on going ahead without a total re-design. One of the major flaws was that to make the engine short the big ends were too narrow so had a very short life. The other big problem related to installation in the low-set ergomatic cab which gave very little radiator area. Later versions had increased volume achieved through thinner liners which improved but did not solve the cooling issues. In the trucks they were usually mated to the semi auto gearbox (5 speed with splitter) which made it a pretty good tool for it's time in cooler climates.

NMP'S [/li]

Sounds like the idea had plenty of promise but like some many things was rushed into service before it was ready



Paul

As MrsMackPaul said, it was rushed into service before it was ready.

I read in a history of AEC that it was built by AEC and their engineers knew the V8 was not ready for release but it was at the time of the takeover by Leyland and the Leyland sales people insisted that it go into production and be released to the buyers with all faults. It led to the end of the AEC brand.

What could have been!

Not all that disimilar to an early Pete 350 cab??

A most 'up to date' looking truck, for the time.

Jarrod.