In this first of a multi-volume production, The AEC Story, from Venture Publications, author Brian Thackray has produced an impressive piece of original research setting out in awesome detail the first quarter-century of the Associated Equipment Company from its beginnings as bus building and overhaul premises, acquired by the London General Omnibus Company Limited when it took over a competitor in 1908, to its emergence as an independent vehicle manufacturer following its split from the General's successor, the London Passenger Transport Board, in 1933. The author brings a lifetime's study of AEC to bear on this work; he has gone back to original documents, such as the Company's minute books and contemporary letters, to bring to life the personalities and administrative procedures behind the production of buses and commercial vehicles which bore the celebrated "AEC" logo. Thus the brief and unsuccessful flirtation with Daimler, when the Associated Daimler Company Limited was created a