The name's Austin

The Austin Motor Company made the radical move of introducing a small, affordable car in 1922. Sir Herbert Austin came up with the idea during 1920, which was not popular with the company's board. As all great men do, he decided to forge ahead anyway; putting his own money up to finance the project and engaging a designer called Stanley Edge to work on the plans. Built on an A frame chassis with a compact four cylinder engine, the prototype cars were completed in 1922. Sales started out strong but not as well as expected. However Sir Austin needn't have worried, his idea of making motoring affordable to the general public turned the Austin Motor Company from a firm in the financial doldrums to a highly profitable one. Production continued until 1939. By then 290000 Austin Seven cars and vans had been manufactured, not including the chassis that were exported to Australia for coachbuilders to use as the basis of their own models. The one in my picture drew up outside Tesco as I was leaving this evening after doing some shopping. Blip delivery service!