Austin 7 Chummy

Click Here for Full Screen Image - Click Here to Download Image

By 1920 the Austin Motor Company was heading for trouble, its range of high quality but staid and expensive cars were no longer in tune with the market.

In 1921, and to the consternation of the Board of Directors, Herbert Austin set about designing a new small car. He famously took Stanley Edge away from the drawing office at Longbridge, in secret, and placed him in the billiard room at his home, Lickey Grange, to get on with the job in hand - designing a new generation of small cars.

With the Board against it from the outset, the design was only pushed through to production after Austin threatened to take the idea to Wolseley, probably saving the company from bankruptcy and putting virtually the entire British cyclecar industry out of business at a stroke. Herbert Austin himself had a number of personal patents in the car and took a £2 royalty on each car sold.

Designed as a ‘big car in minature’ the Austin 7 offered excellent performance, reliability and big car comfort at a price that the working man could afford. It genuinely was ‘motoring for the millions’. Drive one today and you will receive more waves and smiles per mile than in any other car.

For many, the pre-1931 models represent the pinnacle of ‘cuteness’, retaining the short radiator surround and dainty wings lost on the later models. They were also lighter, the taller 4.9:1 back axle ratio ensuring that a well driven early model performs better than the later, heavier cars, maintaining a genuine 45-50mph on the open road.

Cheap to run, easy to tune and simple to work on, they offer what may be considered the ultimate Vintage experience, with many owners of far more exotic machinery vowing that their humble Austin would be the last car in their stable they would ever part with!

The four-seater was known as the 'Chummy', a reference to the proximity of the rear passengers to those in the front! This 1930 Chummy has spent much of its life in Ireland and was restored by well known fettler David Dunne in the early 'noughties'. It is reputed to run and drive, last being used on the International Gordon Bennett Rally by a ladies team several years ago. A few small tidying jobs would transform the car, which comes with a useful hood and reupholstered seats.

The enduring popularity of the baby Austin, and the pleasure it brings to its owners, is proof of a well-known fact - everybody should have at least one Seven in their lives at all times!

Bidders are advised that the registration number shown on the pictures is the Southern Irish number KL 1400 which will need to be changed if the car is to remain in the UK.