Aeon Products (London)

Aeon Products (London) Ltd was a London maker and wholesaler of rubber goods for the motor trade. Its defining product was protected by British patent 755186, 'Improvements in or relating to springs', applied for on 4 October 1954 and published in August 1956: a hollow cylindrical spring of rubber with an intermediate constriction that limits expansion under compression and so gives a rising, exponential spring rate rather than the S-curve of a plain rubber block. Grace's Guide records the firm exhibiting at the 1963 Motor Show with electronic ignition and other accessories, and advertising in May 1964.

The Land Rover application was the Aeon Hollow Rubber Springs suspension kit, 'approved by the Rover Company Limited for use with the Land-Rover' and issued as one of the factory's approved-equipment leaflets; the copy in the Automobile Association's technical library is stamped 2 January 1967. The hollow spring replaced the rear-axle bump rubber and carried part of the vehicle's weight, improving ride and appearance and reducing roll on a laden vehicle without increasing payload. For 109-inch Land Rovers Kit No. 44 (spring 530S/65) suited permanently laden vehicles and those regularly carrying over 10 cwt, and Kit No. 42 (530L/65) special-purpose personnel carriers such as ambulances; for the 88 the same two kits served laden vehicles and heavy-duty personnel transport. Fitting took about two hours, the Aeon cup being tack-welded to the axle bump pad; front-axle springs existed but were restricted to Rover-approved conversions. The leaflet gives the company's address as 11 Northdown Street, London N1, telegrams 'Aeonrubber'.

By 1976 the company belonged to the Firestone group: at an extraordinary general meeting on 27 September 1976, with its registered office care of the Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co. Ltd, Great West Road, Brentford, the members resolved to wind Aeon Products (London) Limited up voluntarily, appointing Firestone's Kenneth Phillip Lord liquidator, the same day and liquidator as the Bordesley Rubber Company; the Gazette described its business as 'wholesaler of rubber goods for the automobile industry', and the final meeting was advertised on 28 October 1976.

The Aeon spring outlived the company. Timbren Industries of Canada, which says it has led suspension enhancement for more than 55 years, sells Aeon rubber springs in North America, and Hallite Seals in Britain has offered its AEON progressive rubber springs as sole suspension and spring helpers 'for over 40 years'.