It's not often you can credit a gentlemen's club with spinning out a hugely successful company. But to trace the origins of Britain's second biggest roadside recovery service, the RAC, you have to go all the way back to the founding of the Royal Automobile Club in 1897.
To be accurate, the RAC hadn't quite earned its "royal" status yet. That came along ten years later when fellow petrolhead King Edward VII bestowed the honour on the old boys' club. It was just the plain old Automobile Club of Great Britain that was formally inaugurated on 8 December 1897, founded by Frederick Richard Simms and Charles Harrington Moore.
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