Birth of Austin Motor Company | The Bad Blonde Car History

Let’s go all the back back to 1905 when the Austin Motor Company Limited was founded by Herbert Austin. Herbert Austin had been with Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine company, say that five times fast… Now shearing sheep is highly cyclical, so you can imagine Austin was on the look for a venture with more steady demand. He began fancying cars, studying cars, and in 1895 till 1899 he built three in his free time. These are considered some of Britain’s first cars. Now he proposed these cars to the Wolseley board of directors and they saw no future with the automobile… However, with there blessing and the backing of the Vickers brothers Austin created a separate automotive manufacturing company using the Wolseley name. Austin would have a fallout with the Vickers brothers and leave! This was after Wolseley had sorta become Britain’s largest motor vehicle manufacturer at the time… Now that took some cojones! Now we are back in 1905 and Austin secures the backing for the Austin Motor Company and by 1906 they had their first Austin car of which motorists and journalists were clamoring to see! This was a conventional 4 cylinder chain driven, with two options a 15/20hp for $500 pounds, or 25/30 for $650 pounds Something to keep in mind, the folks buying Austin cars at the turn of the century were the cream of society. Dukes, bishops, princesses, diplomats, nobility… Like many auto manufacturers who won government contracts, Austin Motor Company did quite well during WWI. They were manufacturing aircraft, shells, guns, and three-ton trucks. Now post WWI they hit a bit of a rough patch monetarily, that would be brief, and they decided to begin making smaller cars in order to expand their market share. In 1922 they popped out the Austin Seven! It was simple, small, and inexpensive, AND I shall digress, the Austin Seven was what Colin Chapman constructed the first Lotus Mark I out of in his girlfriends garage.. Also… William Walmsley and William Lyons first leap from sidecars into coachbuilding was by using the chassis of the 7.. and we would eventually end up with Jaguar out of that. Alright, now why were smaller cars in high demand at the time? The British tax code! In the 1930s every personal car was taxed by its engine size… So you paid basically $2.55 (1930s money) per cubic inch of piston displacement. That was a pretty penny. Really, the Seven car be attributed to saving Austin through the great depression. Datsun also started to build Sevens under license in 1934 and this was Austin’s greatest oversea success of Seven licensing… And this really began Datsun’s success too. #AustinSeven #ClassicCars #BadBlonde