Austin
The first car to have the Austin name was in 1906, and the models that followed were conventional and well built cars. But the Austin 7 Chummy introduced in 1922 was a ground braking small car that became a legend. Unlike a cycle type car it was really a proper car that had been shrunk down complete with a 4 cylinder engine, would seat 4 people, and had 4 wheel brakes. The Austin Seven was built under licence in Germany as the Dixi by BMW, and Rosengart in France The Swallow bodied The Austin Seven Swallow was even a stepping stone for William Lyons on a path which ended up with the Jaguar marque. There were a plethora of models before the war and post war things carried on until the new A40 was introduced in 1947. Shortly after the Austin A70 and 2.6 litre A90 (Westminster) models were developed into A95, A99, A105 and A110 etc. In 1951 the little A30 got made which was developed into many models, with the final development of the A30 engine being what ended up in the Allegro at British Leyland!
While the A40 was in production, the first of the ground breaking Issigonis designed Minis was introduced in 1959, which claimed the mantle of the original Austin 7. Starting at 848cc it increased to 997cc in the new "Cooper", then 998cc, 1071cc eventually ending up the largest at 1275, but to learn more see our section on Mini.
