Automotive Products

Automotive Products, commonly abbreviated to AP, was an automotive industry components company set up in 1920 by Edward Boughton, Willie Emmott and Denis Brock, to import and sell American-made components to service the fleet of ex-military trucks left behind in Europe after World War I.

In 1928, they obtained a licence for the manufacture and sale of the Lockheed Hydraulic Braking System for the British Isles and Continental Europe, and in the following year they acquired a controlling interest in Zephyr Carburetors Limited which had premises in Clemens Street, Leamington Spa. A subsidiary company named the Lockheed Hydraulic Brake Company Ltd was formed and brake component manufacture began.

In 1931, the Borg & Beck Company Limited was set up to manufacture clutches under American patents from Borg & Beck in the USA. This allowed the company to sell British made Borg & Beck clutches in the United Kingdom, overseas British possessions and the British Empire (except Canada). The same year, the first block of a new purpose-built factory in Tachbrook Road was opened, extending by 1970 to some 70 acres.

The company became the UK's leading manufacturer and supplier of clutches and braking, and was dominant in the market until the end of the 1970s.

AP also developed a close technical partnership with the British Motor Corporation (BMC), in the development of automatic transmissions. One of the most notable products of this collaboration was the unique AP automatic transmission used in the Mini and later BMC/BL compact models. The two companies jointly owned a plant in Kings Norton to produce the transmissions, and the matching variants of the A-series engines to go with them.

The business was bought by BBA (British Belting and Asbestos) in 1986.

The 1990 report stated that trading deteriorated in the second half of the year. A claim against AP in respect to an accommodation vessel for a gas rig, which originated before BBA bought AP, had been resolved and claims against third parties are in process; this was possibly about the AP business in Speke. Generally, the automotive side had seen more of a decline, including Pacific BBA. The Clutch business acquired new original equipment business in Europe and the US. The automatic clutch and throttle system (ACTS) which combines electronic sensing and control to combine the convenience of semi-automatic transmission with the cost-effectiveness of manual systems continued to raise interest from manufacturers. This seems to be the start of the idea of an automatic clutch with a manual gear lever or paddles behind the steering wheel. The Braking system seemed to be controlling on brakes for specialist vehicles and on an "all makes" replacement part programme - it seemed that AP Leamington decided to get out of high-level original equipment braking during the 80s, leaving it with aftermarket and small levels of OE, a condition that it still has. Steering, suspension, and racing continued to grow, as did the aircraft business. The holding in Landlock in South Africa was sold thus removing the ex-AP South African business, following the creation of Pacific BBA to take over the Australian, and presumably New Zealand, parts of AP.

At this time BBA was extending into many areas including plastics, aviation servicing and high voltage inductors in addition to its existing automotive, aviation, industrial textiles, and friction systems.