This page is one of several pages which are based on articles in our book entitled Royal Leamington Spa, A History in 100 Buildings which was published in 2018 and is no longer in print.
Automotive Products was the major employer in Leamington for around 40 years in the 20th century. It was generally referred to locally as AP or Lockheed although the company used many other brand names.
Origins
The Automotive Products company was established in London in 1920 with the initial purpose of importing components from the USA to maintain ex-military vehicles which were adapted for civilian use in this country.
The business expanded to manufacture components for the fast-growing British motor industry. It was indeed an opportune time to acquire a place in this market.
The “Three Musketeers”
The three partners who set up the company were Edward Bishop Boughton (b. 1873), Willie Emmott (b. 1881) and Denis Tabor Brock (b. 1883). It is said that they were known to the employees as the “Three Musketeers”. The company flourished from 1928 when the company bought the rights to manufacture Lockheed hydraulic brakes in the UK from the American Lockheed Corporation.
Duesenberg in USA had become the first automotive marque to use the hydraulic brake technology on a production passenger car when a Lockheed system was installed in 1921.
Establishment and Rapid Growth of AP
In 1929 AP bought a company called Zephyr Carburettors which was based in Clemens Street in Leamington at what is now number 32 and which is occupied in 2014 by John Atkins Cycles. [This building had been] Built very early in the growth of the town as a chapel about 1816[;], it was subsequently used as a theatre from 1848 and then as a Congregational Church from 1868.
AP began to manufacture components there for Lockheed Brakes with 25 employees. Perhaps surprisingly, brake components were still being made in Clemens Street in 1970. AP went on to buy the rights to Borg and Beck clutches in 1931; they also saw the future of retractable undercarriages for aircraft in 1937. They added Purolator oil filters in 1947 and then Thompson steering components. Such was the growth of the company that the first block of their new plant in Tachbrook Road received planning permission in 1930, only 10 years after the company was established. The first sections were completed in 1932. This phase of building eventually occupied 70 acres.
World War II and beyond.
The factory worked 24-hour days during the war making components for armaments and aircraft and employed up to 10,000 people. The AP Aircraft Division provided equipment for many aircraft including the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. The factory was marked as a target on German maps and was subjected to several bombing raids. This aspect was played down in the official company history but, in fact, several employees were killed or injured.
After the war AP went on to supply components for the Brabazon, Comet, Trident, HS125 and other British and foreign commercial aircraft. The Aircraft Division was eventually moved from Leamington to Liverpool. Lockheed brakes were fitted to the car that set the world land speed record of 394 mph in 1947 driven by John Cobb.
Miranda
The company celebrated at the Festival of Britain in 1951 by commissioning a bronze statue by sculptor Arthur Fleischmann of a mermaid named Miranda which was 2.5 metres long and 1.2 metres high. It was moved to the main entrance to the factory on Tachbrook Road; designated as a listed building Grade II but, sadly, it was stolen in 2001 and has never been found.
Further Expansion
The one millionth set of Lockheed brakes was made as early as 1939 and the ten millionth clutch was made in 1958. In 1956 the company supplied an astonishing 50% of the brakes made in the UK and 85% of the clutches. There was a massive expansion in 1956 when a new unit was built to rehouse Borg and Beck clutch manufacturing. At its peak the company owned 200 acres on Tachbrook Road,
The company bought a firm in West Bromwich in 1954 and established other sites away from Leamington. It was said at one time that the Automatics machine shop at Tachbrook Road was the largest of its type in Western Europe.
Decline
The company declined as imports of motor vehicles and components increased rapidly in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and the company was unable to supply to manufacturers at competitive prices. However, it remained the largest employer in Leamington in the manufacturing sector well into the 1980s. In 1974 it employed 5,483 people; the next largest was Ford with 1,266. AP had reduced to 4,326 staff by 1983.
AP was eventually bought out in 1986. The factory, with its imposing façades along Tachbrook Road was demolished in 2005 and the site became a business park. The building for the Borg and Beck Clutch manufacturing division still stands. The Emmott family name is remembered by a street named Emmott Drive on the Sydenham estate.
In conclusion, the company’s ballroom was well known for the Christmas pantomime and the Lockheed Football Cub (The Brakes) also deserves a mention.
Michael Jeffs, 2019
Acknowledgements.
John Willock, a member of the Warwickshire Industrial Archaeological Society.
Book published by AP in 1970 entitled “50 Years of Progress, 1920 to 1970 – AP Jubilee” by T H Wisdom.