The Austin 7 is an economy car that was produced from 1922 until 1939 in the United Kingdom by Austin. It was nicknamed the "Baby Austin" and was at that time one of the most popular cars produced for the British market and sold well abroad. Its effect on the British market was similar to that of the Model T Ford in the US, replacing most other British economy cars and cyclecars of the early 1920s. It was also licensed and copied by companies all over the world. The first BMW car, the BMW Dixi, was a licensed Austin 7. In France they were made and sold as Rosengarts, and in the United States they were built by the American Austin Car Company. In Japan, Nissan also used the 7 design as the basis for their first cars, although not under licence. including the first race car built by Bruce McLaren, and the first Lotus, the Mark I. Companies such as Speedex in Luton thrived in the late 1950s by producing race-proven bodies and engine parts for the Seven chassis.
Such was the power of the Austin 7 name that the company re-used it for early versions of the A30 in 1951 and Mini in 1959.
thumb
History
thumb|Austin 7 Saloon 1931
thumb|Remains of [[Dalai Lama's Austin 7 in Lhasa, 1993]]
Until the First World War, Austin built mainly large cars, but in 1909 they sold a single-cylinder small car built by Swift of Coventry called the Austin 7 hp. After this they returned to bigger cars.
In 1920 Sir Herbert Austin commenced working on the concept of a smaller car, mainly to meet the needs of young families aspiring to own an affordable motor car. This idea was spurred on by the introduction of the Horsepower Tax in 1921. His design concept marked a departure from his company's conservative motoring past and Austin received considerable opposition from his board of directors and creditors. Because the company was in receivership, Austin decided to carry out the project himself, and in 1921 hired an 18-year-old draughtsman, Stanley Edge, from the Austin factory at Longbridge, Birmingham to aid in the drawing of detailed plans. This work was carried out in the billiard room of Austin's Lickey Grange home.
Edge later claimed to have convinced Austin to use a small four-cylinder engine. The original side valve engine design featured a capacity of 696cc (55mm x 77mm) giving a RAC rating of 7.2 hp. The cast cylinder block featured a detachable head and was mounted on an aluminium crankcase. The crankshaft used one roller and two ball bearings and the big-ends were splash lubricated. Edge also later claimed to have carried out the design of other mechanical components such as the three speed gearbox and clutch assembly. Austin was largely responsible for styling the Seven's design, which was reportedly influenced by the design of the Peugeot Quadrilette. The "A" frame chassis design was believed to have been influenced by the design of an American truck used in the Longbridge factory in the early 1920s.
The design was completed in 1922 and three prototypes were constructed in a special area of the Longbridge factory, and announced to the public in July 1922.
As a result, two new sports models were offered by Austin in January 1924, the Sports and the Brooklands Super-sports. The Brooklands Super-sports was a replica of England's record-breaker. Each car was sold with a Brooklands certificate proving a speed of per hour. By 1925 Gordon England held nineteen 750 cc class records.
Austin Seven Swallow
thumb|1931 Austin Seven Swallow saloon
thumb|1931 Austin 7 Swallow, rear quarter
In 1927, William Lyons, co-founder of the Swallow Sidecar Company saw commercial potential in producing a re-bodied Austin 7. Buying a chassis from dealer Parkers of Bolton Lyons commissioned Swallow's talented employee, coachbuilder Cyril Holland, to produce a distinctive open tourer: the Austin Seven Swallow. Holland (1895-1983), who joined Swallow in late 1926, had served his apprenticeship with Lanchester and would become chief body engineer. The height of saloon car fashion of the day was to have the back of the body fully rounded, this was called "dome" shaped.
With its bright two-tone colour scheme and a style befitting more expensive cars of the time, together with its low cost (£175), the Swallow proved popular and was followed in 1928 by a saloon version: the Austin Seven Swallow Saloon.
Approximately 3,500 bodies of various styles were produced up until 1932, when Lyons started making complete cars under the SS cars marque.
Such was the demand for the Austin Seven Swallows that Lyons was forced to move in 1928 from Blackpool to new premises in Coventry. It was, in part, the success of the Swallows that laid the foundations of what was to become, by 1945, Jaguar Cars.
Licensed production
Versions of the Austin 7 were made under licence by American Austin from 1930, Dixi (later bought by BMW) in Germany from 1927 and Rosengart in France from 1928. Austin 7s were also manufactured by Nissan (Datsun) but reports differ as to whether these were built under licence or were unlicensed copies. In addition, rolling chassis were exported to Australia to have locally made bodies attached.
<gallery>
Bantam Convertible 1939.jpg|1939 American Bantam (U.S.)
Datsun 16 Sedan 1937.jpg|1937 Nissan (Datsun) 16 (Japan)
BMW Dixi 1930.JPG|1930 BMW 3/15 (Germany)
Rosengart LR4 1928.jpg|1928 Rosengart LR4 (France)
Austin 7 1936, hooter ? apples - Flickr - mick - Lumix.jpg|1936 Austin Seven
</gallery>
American Austin, American Bantam, and Jeep
The American Austin Car Company was founded in 1929, in Butler, Pennsylvania, in premises that had belonged to the Standard Steel Car Company. After some initial success the Great Depression set in, and sales fell off to the point that production was suspended. In 1934 the company filed for bankruptcy.
The automobile was designed in the hopes of creating a market for small-car enthusiasts in the United States. The cars had inline-four engines, enabling the car to return , and travel per fill of oil.
Australian-bodied Austin Sevens
In the aftermath of World War I the Australian Government imposed a tariff on imported vehicles, with tax concessions applying to rolling chassis, as a stimulus to develop a sovereign motor vehicle industry. The chassis concession acted as a financial incentive for local coach-builders to import factory built rolling chassis, and fit uniquely Australian designed and built bodies, leading to the establishment of an Australian motor vehicle bodybuilding industry in the early 1920s.
thumb|1929 Australian-bodied Austin 7 Meteor (Coach-builder A. Robinson & Co. Castlereagh St, Sydney)
The largest and best known of these Australian coach-builders was Holden's Motor Body Builders. Holden built Australian-bodied Austin Seven tourer and roadster models from the mid-1920s.
However, several smaller coach-builders built limited numbers of Australian-bodied Austin Seven sports models between 1924 and 1934. Some examples of these Australian-bodied sports models are; the Standard Sports, built by Flood Motor Body Works, St Kilda Road, Melbourne; the Wasp built by William Green, Parramatta Road, Petersham, Sydney; the Moth built by Geo Sykes, Gordon Road, Chatswood, Sydney; the Comet built by Bill Conoulty, Sydney; and the Meteor. The Meteor was built by several coach-builders (Flood Motor Body Works, St Kilda Road, Melbourne; Jack Lonzar, Kent Town Adelaide; and A Robinson & Co., 181 Castlereagh St, Sydney), with individual variations to the common design.
Layout
In 2007, during an episode of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson and James May studied a number of early car designs (including the Ford Model T and the De Dion-Bouton Model Q) and concluded that the Austin Seven was the first mass-market car to be fitted with a "conventional" control layout, as found on modern cars (although the earliest car they found to use this layout was a Cadillac Type 53 in 1916).