Austin A35 Four-door Saloon

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Following the success of the pre-war Seven, Austin placed enormous importance on their new post-war small car range.

To this end Lord Austin employed a design consultancy run by Raymond Loewy in the USA. His influence on car design is legendary and one of his top men, Bob Koto, was dispatched to England for four months to help style the new baby Austin.

Prior to his arrival, Lord Austin had also purchased an interesting one-off design built by Ian Duncan. He ran a small business making bodies for Healey and Alvis cars, and had come up with a monocoque front-wheel drive design. Along with his prototype, he was contracted to the engineering department at Longbridge and started work on the chassis design. The outcome of their labours was the Austin A30, a small car with four seats which proved an instant success in the car-starved post-war marketplace.

In 1956 the A35 was announced, an updated version of the A30 with a larger rear window, painted grille and indicators replacing the old semaphore signals. Under the bonnet the 803cc engine was replaced by the 948cc A-Series mated to a new gearbox with remote change. It was enough to continue the strong sales until the arrival of the all new A40 in 1959. Autocar tests showed a top speed of 72mph, with 0-60mph taking 30 seconds. Fuel consumption was a modest 41.5 mpg.

As the original buff log book confirms, this delightful little four-door A35 was supplied new by Arnold Genders & Co of Kings Heath, Birmingham, in July 1959 and had just two local owners for the next 52 years, the first keeping it until 1970 and the second until 2011.

In lovely original condition throughout, it is believed to have covered only 66,000 miles from new and comes with many old MOT certificates back to 1981, by which point it had 62,867 miles under its wheels. Fitted with inertia reel seat belts and a new fuel tank in 2010, it also has various bills showing routine maintenance over the last dozen years.

Said to drive well, it is taxed until the end of October and no longer requires an MOT, the last one having expired in July 2013 with no advisories recorded. It also comes with a rather nice transferable number, YOM 671.