Is the Austin 7 the most important car ever made? | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

Initially released in 1922, the diminutive Austin 7 rapidly turned Britain’s very first correct ‘peoples car’, heading on to grow to be some thing of an establishment, this technically traditional however utterly revolutionary tiny motor vehicle efficiently wiping out the briefly common cycle automobiles of the period (just is its religious Austin 7 successor – the Mini – did in 1959, producing the thankful demise of the up to date and generally grim and inadequate microcars).

The uncomplicated aspect-valve straight-four 747cc Austin 7 shortly out-sold the earlier Morris (Bullnose) Oxford as Britain’s most effective car, with nearly 300,000 examples created in Longbridge by itself involving 1922 and ’39 in much more than 35 differing ‘factory’ physique varieties, all pre-dating Britain’s beloved Morris Slight and BMC/BL Mini by a long time.

The 7 also served as the basis of a pair of today’s motoring giants – BMW and Nissan – through the initial Dixi and Datsun products, developed domestically underneath licence (at least in the circumstance of the previous!), along with other global Seven derivatives created under arrangement by Bantam in the United states of america (the originators of the World War II Jeep) and Rosengart in France.

In addition, other now recognized and revered motor vehicle makers past and existing, these kinds of as Jaguar (by using Swallow Sidecars/SS) and Jensen, owe their quite existence to the small Austin by featuring fetching coachbuilt ‘alternative’ sporting and luxurious derivatives of the model in the 1920s and ’30s.