The Maudslay Motor Company was founded in Coventry in 1902 by Cyril Charles Maudslay to make marine internal combustion engines. The engines did not sell very well, and in 1902 they made their first engine intended for a car. Later that year they made a petrol railway locomotive for the City of London Corporation to draw trucks from the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway to the Corporation meat market at Deptford. The locomotive weighed 12 tons, and was provided with an 8 hp auxiliary engine which was used to start the main engine. This was the first commercially successful petrol locomotive in the world.

The three-cylinder engine was followed in 1903 by a six-cylinder version, possibly the first overhead-camshaft six to go into production. By 1904 a range of cars was on offer, including one with a 9.6-litre version of the six-cylinder engine. The cars were among the most expensive on the British market. As well as cars the company made commercial vehicles with the first double decker bus produced in 1905 and a range of trucks also being produced.

Private car production stopped with the outbreak of World War One. During the war the company supplied three-, five- and six-ton lorries to the British war Office, along with aircraft undercarriages and reconditioning work on radial engines. When the war ended, the company did not resume the manufacture of private cars, focusing instead on heavy goods vehicles. During World War II all civilian vehicle production ceased and the company produced service vehicles, tanks and aircraft components. In 1948, Maudslay joined AEC and Crossley in the new Associated Commercial Vehicles (ACV) Ltd. The name was kept on at first, but in 1950 it was phased out.