Elictricars Streamlined Special AOX 653

Designers of just about anything went streamline-mad in the mid-1930s, encouraged by exciting developments in air travel. The results often looked wonderful when new but usually dated very badly!

Even designers of humble battery-electric vehicles were not immune. Electricars, based in Lawley Street, Birmingham, produced this van in the 'Airline' style, as it was then called, as an eye-catching demonstrator for the company's products.

The small van was of dubious practical use with just a sliding section in the roof of the curved profile body. Even the trade advertising admitted the limited practicality of the 'Airline' style but stressed "smartness, something out of the ordinary, something different - instantly attracts attention, a continuously travelling advertisement."

The streamline fashion soon waned and it was sold in 1938 to Fowler's Forest Dairies which had a dairy business in Sparkhill, Birmingham and a farm and cheese factory in Earlswood. AOX 653 was an unusual purchase unless the Fowlers originally planned to rebody it, a regular fate of these impractical vans. But every dog has its day and in World War Two, with petrol rationing, the proprietor's wife was able to use it for shopping trips!

In 1958 it was tucked away in a barn on the company's Earlswood farm. It was forgotten until a farm sale in 1985 when it was saved from almost certain scrapping by a new owner in Nottinghamshire.

Fowler's Forest Dairies is still in business and the family is reputed to be the oldest cheese-making family in the UK, having been producers for at least 14 generations.

Preservation
Pre-war battery-electrics are very rare and no other 'streamline' van is thought to have survived. AOX 653 was bought by Wythall in September 1990 and is in extraordinarily original condition, the only changes since new being the small extra side windows and repainting. The Fowlers livery was dark green with red lining and wheels, and gold signwriting.