All the trimmings
THE BLOKE WHO owned this car back in the late 1950s obviously hatched a plan, putting much thought into some modest performance improvements. His engine modifications were great but his interior was a weird lash-up – perhaps he thought his homemade dashboard looked exciting, like some World War One fighter’s cockpit. He was wrong.
When I bought the car six years ago, it had been abandoned in a shed since 1963. By then the interior had become a disgusting threat to human health. My plan was to strip it out, clean it and leave it bare while the rest of the car was restored. Make it a reliable runner first, I reasoned, and leave the interior until later.
That plan worked but then I had to make a decision. Some restored Sevens look good with bright carpets and lots of leather but that idea worried me. Deciding I wanted it to be returned to its original condition, if possible, I spent some months researching what that was.
Eventually I contacted Bryan Purves, author of that invaluable work The Austin Seven Source Book. Bryan was incredibly helpful, asking me to send him small cuts from any surviving sections of original trim. Such traces did exist and it was decided that my car was the most basic of standard models, with black imitation leather covering the seats and side panels, rubber mats on the floor and a headlining in grey cloth. It seems it did not even have any door pockets.
The only rubber mats I could find were for the later, bigger Ruby model but I bought a set and cut them precisely to fit my car. The rest of the work being way beyond my skills, I joined the queue to get it done by David Nightingale Coachtrimming, near Corsham in Wiltshire.
David did an amazing job. He works alone and his detailed knowledge of how these ancient cars were trimmed when new is astonishing. Getting into my car now, I am sure that it could not be any closer to how it looked, felt, smelt and genuinely was in 1932.