Thornycroft

Thornycroft was an English company that built vehicles, like buses and trucks, from 1896 until 1977.

In 1896, ship engineer John Isaac Thornycroft created the Thornycroft Steam Carriage and Van Company, and built its first steam van (a car-like vehicle that uses a steam engine). The van was shown at the Crystal Palace Show, and could carry a load of 1 ton. It had a Thornycroft marine launch-type boiler for boiling steam. Thornycroft announced a new boiler designed for its steam vehicles in October 1897.^[1] The engine was a twin-cylinder compound engine made so that high-pressure steam could move to the low-pressure cylinder to give extra power for hill-climbing.^[2]

A version of the steam wagon with a 6-cubic-yard tipper body was created for Chiswick council in 1896, and worked as a very early self-propelled dust-cart (garbage truck). The Thornycroft tipper was built by the Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works, but engined by Thornycroft.^[3]

Thornycroft's first petrol vehicle was built in 1902,^[4] and the company completed the move into internal combustion engine power in 1907.

Thornycroft's Basingstoke factory made almost 5,000 motor vehicles for use in World War I. It also gave large numbers of engines to the Admiralty, War Office, and other government sections at the beginning of the war and for the next two years.

During World War II, the company designed the Terrapin^[5] and other war-related vehicles.

Thornycroft was taken over on March 1, 1961 by AEC parent Associated Commercial Vehicles (ACV),^[6][7][8] with production limited to a few vehicles.^[9] ACV was taken over by Leyland in 1962. Leyland already had a specialist vehicle unit in Scammell. Vehicle creation at Basingstoke ceased in 1969 with creation moved to Scammell at Watford.^[10] The factory still made gearboxes. It was sold in 1972 to Eaton Corporation.^[11]