George Johnston, a locomotive engineer from Springburn, had an experimental motor car on Scottish roads by November 1895, and was prosecuted for driving it in Glasgow under the old “red flag” laws. That year he formed the Mo-Car Syndicate with Sir William Arrol, the engineer of the Forth Bridge, and the first Arrol-Johnston, a high-wheeled six-seat “Dogcart” with its engine under the floor, went into production at Camlachie in Glasgow’s East End.
After the Camlachie works burned down in 1901, production moved to Paisley. The shipbuilder and steelmaker William Beardmore became the largest shareholder in 1902 and effectively took the firm over, and in 1905 it became the Arrol-Johnston Car Company. In 1913 the company built a new factory at Heathhall, just outside Dumfries, designed by Albert Kahn, the architect of Ford’s Highland Park plant; it is said to have been the first factory in Britain built of reinforced concrete.
After the First World War the Victory model was a public embarrassment when the Prince of Wales’s car broke down on a royal tour, and the cheaper Fiat-inspired Galloway was launched as a separate make from 1921. In 1927 Arrol-Johnston merged with Aster of Wembley to form Arrol-Aster, but the combined company went into receivership within two years and limited sales ended in 1931.
