AUSTIN SEVEN
MATT TOMKINS: ‘100 years ago, the Seven changed the world’
A century has now passed since Herbert Austin’s little Seven made motoring for the masses possible. Designed as a small car with big car principles, nearly 300,000 were sold by the time it went out of production in 1939. Throughout its production, the Seven was swiftly refined, a 696cc engine was quickly superseded on all but the very the earliest models and all cars built prior to the latter part of 1929, including the 1925 Chummy featured here were fitted with cable operated brakes all round, with only the rears being operated by the foot brake, the fronts on the handbrake. By the time the Ruby was launched, the Seven had become well refined indeed for a car of its era, size and price, keeping it a well-loved staple for the British motor industry until the outbreak of the second world war.
The Austin Seven was a pioneer model for many motor manufacturers. The Swallow Sidecar Company built the Austin Swallow, and later the company became Jaguar. A fledgling BMW built the Seven under licence as the Dixie, Bruce Mclaren’s first car was a Seven special that he raced and Colin Chapman of Lotus fame, too, launched his career with A7-derived machines.
The 1925 Chummy here is on kind loan from The Great British Car Journey museum in Derbyshire, and it’s story represents that of so many of these cars which, in the words of Herbert Austin, ‘made motoring possible for thousands who could not otherwise have enjoyed its advantages.’ Sold new on February 4, 1926 to the 17-year- old daughter of a wine merchant, Miss Diana Gilbey, it was sold to another young lady, Rhoda Edwards , a nurse, in 1928 who went on to own the car for 37 years. Fifty-one years later, the car was acquired and restored by Austin Seven expert Nick Turley, a director of the GBCJ, and after a four-year restoration it is now back to as-new condition.
Why you want one
There’s never been a bad time to buy an Austin Seven, they’re wonderful car and, of any car of this era, probably the easiest to live with in terms of parts availability and specialist help thanks to their ubiquity. In 2022, though, the baby Austin’s centenary year, the immortal Austin Seven remains as charming as ever and celebrated the world over for its contribution to the evolution of the motor car. Whether competition tickles your fancy, with Vintage Sports Car Club (VSCC) driving tests, muddy trials or even track work with the Longstone Light Car Race a fantastically sedate spectacle, there has never been a better time to grab the bull by the horns and jump head first into Seven ownership.
‘There’s never been a bad time to buy an Austin Seven’