AC Taxis: A legacy spanning over 50 years

At ACs we are very proud of our long standing history in the borough of Southend,

The company was originally formed in 1957 by Alec Collision (AC), Alec and a friend Peter Ward went to London and purchased 4 ex London Hackney Carriage vehicles.  The first two he purchased for £200 each, he then immediately took these to a finance broker to get log book loans on them, this money he used to finance the 3rd & 4th.  Alec purchased 4 Murphy Radios and a Base Station.  Alec set up an office in his mother in laws back room in a bungalow at 518 Prince Ave Westcliff.  Alec and Peter hired the Scouts and the Girl Guides to leaflet the town. back then the meter started at 9 old pence. This was the start of ACs.

Alec standing on pier hill next to the first ever AC's Cab.

On the 14th of January 1969 a consortium of drivers decided to buy him out, and at that point AC Radio Cabs Ltd was born.

The Consortium lead by a board of directors established the business over the next 25 years when eventually  Mr Saxton purchased a majority shareholding and with his direction transformed the way the company dispatched jobs  from the old fashion voice control to a fully automated and computerized system. Mr Saxton over the next twenty years established Ac Taxis as Southend’s leading force with over 235 Taxis and 350 drivers.

In 2012 the reigns were taken up by John Watson whose vision is to take the next step and ensure that Ac Taxis remains at the cutting edge of the Taxi trade with investments in a state of the art call centre located in Southchurch, together with an updated version of the computerized system which will embrace current technology such as automatic call answering,GPS tracking of all Taxis, App’s, web-bookers and much more.

AC Taxis are extremely well placed in their sector, equipped with modern technology, well invested and looking forward to serving the public of Southend for the next 50 years.

Original ACs drivers on a night out

The founder of ACs wedding with the first drivers

 One of the first children's charity runs ACs did

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