Austin A90 Atlantic The story of why and how Austin tried to design a car for the US market.
The Austin A90 Atlantic was conceived with the American market in mind and designed specifically to cater to tastes there. Unfortunately it missed its mark and never sold in sufficient numbers to really justify its development.
After WW2 Britain was, quite simply, broke. British industry was rushing to gain essential export currency, and the motor industry was at the forefront of that great push. They were encouraged by the government because steel, which was in short supply, was rationed to those manufacturers who were exporting at least 50% of their output (increased to 75% in 1949).
The largest market, and probably the only one booming, was the USA, so car makers were particularly keen to grab a slice of that ever-increasing pie and the all-important US dollars. While some just offered British cars unchanged to meet overseas needs, a handful were innovating and coming up with new designs specifically with the US in mind, some of them it must be said being a lot more successful than others.
Austin had come out of the war in a fairly healthy state due to its military contracts, and was one of the first to get back into peacetime manufacturing. The Austin A40 Devon and two- door Dorset were launched in the UK and North America in 1947, Austin’s chief Leonard Lord having travelled to Canada and the US twice earlier that year to investigate those markets. Sales in both countries started well, but as Colin Peck reported in his book The Last Real Austins: 19461959: ‘ Despite US sales of the A40 peaking at 10,000 units in 1948, Austin’s advances into America were not proving profitable, Lord stating in 1949 that Austin was actually selling cars in the US at less than the cost of production. ‘Things went a little better for Austin in Canada,’ Peck continued, ‘ where the newlyformed Austin Motor Company (Canada) Ltd acquired a disused factory in Hamilton, Ontario for the assembly of CKD kits from Britain, and announced plans to build 500 cars a week the following year.’
In Australia, the situation was equally positive, and in 1950 the A40 was the biggest selling car there, being assembled in six plants across the country. The largest was Larke Hoskins in Sydney, which supplied 13,522 vehicles for the year and earned a record profit of £1 million for the company. But Lord realised that to be successful in the USA, he needed to compete with the larger locally-built products. He had also seen the burgeoning sports car market while visiting the States, and felt that Austin should really have a distinctive top of the range model to fit into this segment.
Lord came back home with an idea of what Americans wanted, and felt he could give it to them with an English flavour. It is a well-worn legend that Lord, who was a talented draughtsman in his own right, had drawn a rough sketch of what he wanted for the sports car on (depending on the story) either a napkin or an envelope. He handed the drawing to Austin’s in-house stylist Ricardo ‘Dick’ Burzi and instructed him to turn it into reality.
To keep development time and costs down, it was decided to use the existing chassis and engine from the soon to be released A70 Hampshire. The chassis was based on that of the A40, but enlarged a little, and the engine was straight out of the Austin 16 released in 1945. In fact, the proposed new model was referred to around the factory in the early days as the Sixteen Sports, but for simplicity we will call it the A90 throughout.
Lord wanted a streamlined flowing shape on the body. Burzi took the front wings of the A70 and stretched them on a sweeping curve, from the front of the car to the back, through the two long doors and finishing at the front edge of the rear bumper, the kind of sweeping wing that was popular on many English sports cars of the time and into the late 1950s. Where the A90 was unique was in not having corresponding rear wings and having the rear wheels covered
with spats in the American style.
The design of the A90 was reportedly based on a one- off convertible Alfa Romeo penned by Pinin Farina in Italy. Certainly, Lord did see the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Speciale by Farina and he actually bought it in 1947, by which time concept drawings and scale models of the A90 were well under way. There are unmistakable detail similarities between the Alfa and the A90, particularly in the lines of the bonnet, grille, bumpers and headlights plus the rounded rear end, but the bulk of the A90 is unmistakably and uniquely Austin.
Another story tells how Lord came into the design studio one day and saw a drawing or model – again depending on which version of the story you hear – which was using the front of the A70 with its high bonnet line and elongated bonnet. Unhappy with the look of the car, he apparently grabbed a pencil (or file) and altered the drawing/model with a steeply sloping bonnet, saying: ‘ That’s what I want.’ If this is correct, and by this time he had the Alfa, then it is easy to see where the influence for that bonnet line came from.
The reason Burzi had utilized the A70 front was because of the high-mounted Zenith carburettor, with its air cleaner on top. It was a logical choice, because the chassis, scuttle and main bulkhead were taken straight from the A70, so why not the bonnet too? The engine itself was based on the 16/A70, but enlarged from 2199cc to 2660cc. When it came to boring the engine out, though, it was found there wasn’t enough metal between the cylinders, so a slightly modified block was cast for the A90.
However, there was no way the carburettor configuration was going to fit under Lord’s new sweeping bonnet. At the time, all Austins used Zenith carburettors. While it was accepted that SU carbs performed better, the SU company was owned by arch rival firm Morris and they refused to offer Austin the same price they charged Morris Motors. But as there was no alternative, the inlet manifold was redesigned and a set of twin SU carburettors was fitted to the A90, becoming the first Austin car to use them.
Styling Criticisms
Unfortunately, Lord tried to mix too many design styles and cram too many features into a car that failed to excite the American car-buying public. To appeal to the US buyer, the A90 had its gear change on the steering column and featured a split front seat that could seat three people, with a narrower rear seat to make it a five-seater. This was another feature to fly in the face of UK convention, with most British sporty cars having bucket seats and a floormounted gear change.
Another area that came in for criticism is the centrallymounted fog light. However, a centrally-mounted light of some type was a common feature on many cars of the period, from the traditional and staid Bentley and Rover to the most revolutionary and modern American car of its time, the Tucker Torpedo. The five chrome strips along the centerline of the bonnet are more in keeping with a pre-war Art Deco style though, and are slightly reminiscent of the Chrysler Aero. The faired-in headlights, flowing front wings, lashings of chrome and covered rear wheels are also design elements that hark back to the Art Deco period.
From certain angles, particularly side- on and from a rear three- quarter view, the A90 has quite appealing lines. But the mish-mash of styling cues at the front doesn’t work at all well and is the main point of contention for most people. Yet, compared with what was available in America at the time, the A90 is actually a bit understated. In the UK, though, coming out of the war and into a period of austerity, the A90 Atlantic was a flamboyant, decadent, Americanised behemoth that, with rationing of almost every commodity and restrictions on purchasing any cars without a government permit, was beyond the reach of almost every mere mortal.
Design Problems
There were more important problems to solve on early prototypes than front styling, though. Burzi’s original design called for a tightly curved wraparound windscreen, but this was beyond the capabilities of the day. As a short-term measure,
the first prototype was fitted with a split screen incorporating two flat pieces of glass. Another prototype featured a Perspex screen, but when the problem couldn’t be solved with glass, a conventional, slightly curved screen was fitted, with two tightly radiused sidepieces and chrome-plated brass trims over the joins.
With no roof section, the early cars suffered from tremendous scuttle shake, which was so bad it almost saw the end of the project. Numerous fixes were tried, but only when Ken Garrett joined
Austin from the aircraft industry and applied his knowledge of aircraft design were they able to come up with a solution.
The fifth prototype had already been used for a number of experiments to eliminate the scuttle shake, including the welding of large gussets to the A-pillars and extra sheet steel under the dashboard to try and increase the body strength. It was this car that was used by Garrett. He removed the body and designed a unique transverse torsion box for the chassis that almost eliminated the problem – or at least reduced it to tolerable levels.
Launch
Lord was so confident in the success of the new car that he authorized for it to have its North American debut, along with the A70 Hampshire which had also been designed specifically with the American market in mind, at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto from 27 August to 11 September 1948, followed by another showing in New York and San Francisco a couple of weeks later. However, as Peck reported: ‘ It was rumoured that GM stated that, whilst it would not object to the A40s entering the American market, it would be most unhappy if Austin also brought in the A70. So it didn’t! General Motors thoroughly examined the A40s and declared that they would not make a political fuss about imported cars if Austin stuck to importing only the small A40s and the Atlantic. Of course, neither model competed with anything that GM was building at the time.’
At the same time as the Canadian Exhibition, the A90 was presented to dealers at a national dealer conference at Longbridge. Then the 1948 Earls Court Motor Show (27 October to 6 November) saw a veritable smorgasbord of new models announced from British
manufacturers, some of which would go on to be design icons – Morris Minor, Jaguar XK120 and Land Rover – and some that wouldn’t, like the Austin A90 Atlantic unfortunately.
Certainly the XK120 and the A90 Atlantic were poles apart in technical design, styling and performance, but they were equally poles apart in terms of success. In the XK120, William Lyons gave the Americans (and the rest of the world) a sports car with looks to die for and the performance to compete with the most exotic machinery on the planet, at a reasonably affordable price of £1263 (around $3600 in the US). With the A90, Leonard Lord offered an ungainly looking car with polarizing styling and less than sparkling performance at £952 (plus £32 for a radio) in the UK, but even dearer than the Jaguar in the US – ranging from $3634 to $3795 depending on the press report or dealer location.
Record Breaker
From the initial reaction in Canada, Austin’s PR Manager Alan Hess realised that to impress American buyers the A90 had to establish its sports car credentials. At Toronto he mentioned to Lord that he wanted to take an A90 to Indianapolis to break some long-standing speed and endurance records, many of which had been held by Studebaker since 1928, to which Lord agreed.
The team consisted of ‘Sammy’ Davis as team manager and motoring cartoonist Russell Brockbank as pit crew and entertainer, with drivers Dennis Buckley, Charles Goodacre and Hess himself taking three-hour stints at the wheel. There was an aborted attempt first at an average speed of 77mph, which destroyed the tyres on the rough brick surface of the Indianapolis Speedway, requiring 20 tyres in 2300 miles and causing severe engine overheating. A second attempt over 12-19 April 1949 was successful. Driving for seven days and seven nights, the car averaged 70.54mph over 11,875 miles and broke or set 53 records in the three-litre class and a further ten in the Unlimited class.
The average speed could have been higher if not for a few problems that had to be overcome. Apart from appalling weather which ranged from very hot and caused overheating issues with the engine to being freezing cold and playing havoc with the drivers, they had to contend with numerous mechanical problems. According to a report on the record run in Motor Sport magazine in June: ‘ Shortcomings included breakage of a front hub spindle… sticking of the carburettor pistons, fumes from the carburetters [sic] which affected the drivers, a hot front hub, replacement of the offending hub after 7600 miles… a hole in one piston… necessitating running-in a new piston and rod, replacement of another (worn and too hot) front hub… and a broken timing chain, the latter happening 55 minutes from the end of the proposed seven-day run, slightly lowering the potential average.’
These problems were all overcome quickly, and amounted to a total of 4h 5m 51s pit time. Scheduled pit stops for four tyres and to have all fluids topped up averaged out to under two minutes each. ‘ The Stock-Car Records established by an Austin A90 at Indianapolis rather take one’s breath away,’ wrote Motor Sport. ‘The successful attack has shaken American motoring circles into enthusiastic acclamation of a car which American citizens can now purchase for as little as $3795.’
While this record attempt has
often been reported as being in reaction to poor sales in the US, it was organised before the A90 was even available for sale and undertaken at the earliest possible opportunity, only seven months later. The recordbreaking car, chassis 35509, was a completely standard model, possibly even the first production car, and after being stripped and thoroughly checked over by the American Automobile Association (AAA) was displayed at Indianapolis during the 500-mile race on 30 May. This record-breaking car still exists in its original state, in the collection of the Birmingham Museums Centre.
Poor Sales
According to Peck: ‘ Len Lord later moaned “What benefit have we got in sales in America? I’m afraid that answer is none – the response to the A90 has been disappointing”.’ Lord thought he had given the Americans exactly what they wanted – a modern opentop touring car with loads of gadgets, and automated roof and windows – but what the Americans really wanted, it appeared, was either all of that plus more space and a bigger engine, or a small British sports car that handled like it was on rails. If they wanted a sports car and had the money to spend on an A90, it seemed they spent it on the Jaguar. If they didn’t, they bought an MG.
Despite a massive advertising campaign focusing on the record run, the A90 just wasn’t selling in the US. A hard-top coupé version with a natty wind- down rear screen was hastily designed and released at the 1949 Earls Court show, but it too failed in the market. Even a price reduction of $1000 in the US couldn’t invigorate sales. The convertible was discontinued in November 1950 and the coupé in December 1952.
When the dust had settled, only 7981 A90 Atlantics had been built – roughly half each of convertible and coupé – of which 3597 were exported. Despite being designed with the US market in mind, only 350 Atlantics of both types were sold there. Remarkably, more than half (4384) were sold on the home market. To sum it all up, Graham Robson wrote in his 1987 book The Cars of BMC: ‘ The A90 Atlantic was a failure by almost any standards – the styling was thought ghastly by many people, it wasn’t a very fast car and it sold very slowly indeed… Its only claim to fame, today, is that its engine and (modified) transmission were used to power the AustinHealey 100 sports car!’