Tag Archives: Psycho

The father of BMW, Jaguar, Bristol and Lotus cars – Austin 7 Part 1/2.

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The father of BMW, Jaguar, Bristol and Lotus cars – Austin 7 Part 1/2.

Above, Chris Smith, 1925 Austin Brooklands Replica, Loton Park.

Today I’d like to introduce a very special little vehicle, the Austin 7 in my humble opinion the influence of this vehicle is so far reaching that I am going to make this my very first two part blog, I hope you’ll bear with me and consider the time and space I have dedicated to this model well spent. I’ll start today by introducing the model and tomorrow I’ll consider it’s bewilderingly far reaching legacy on European automotive history

Above, Ms Hannah Enticknap, 1928, Austin 7 Ulster Special, Loton Park.

The truth is so much stranger than fiction. Consider the humble little Austin 7 with a 6’ft 3″ wheel base and track of 3’6″ powered by a 10hp 747 cc / 45 cui sidevalve engine that complete weighed less than half that of a Model T Ford when it hit the streets in 1922 with rear brakes operated by foot and front brakes operated by hand !

Above, Frank Hernandez, 1928 Austin 7 Brooklands Streamline, Loton Park.

Sir Herbert Austin acting against the wishes of his own board threatened to take the ‘7’ concept to rivals Wolseley before putting his own money into the development of the ‘7’ which was completed with draughts man Stanley Edge at Sir Herberts home Lickey Grange.

Above Matt Johnson, 1928, Austin 7 Ulster Supercharged Special, Loton Park, 2010.

Investment repayments and royalties on Sir Austin’s patents arising from the Austin 7’s innovations amounted to £ 2.10 on every vehicle sold on what emerged to be Britain’s first mass production car.

Above Doug Bukin, 1929 – 1932, Austin 7 Ulster Special, Prescott, 2010.

Over the 14 years the Austin 7 was in production 40 different body styles were introduced including 2 and 4 seaters using aluminium, fabric and steel in tourer, saloon, cabriolet. sports, vans and a Coupe style.

Above Tom Hardman, 1929, Austin 7 Ulster B & Q Special, Loton Park, 2010.

In 1923 2500 Austin 7’s were built, small fry in terms of the numbers of Model T’s built and when production ceased in 1939 the 290,000 units built was hardly hot potatoes in terms of numbers against Detroit’s finest yet the Austin 7 deserves it’s place in British motoring history for being Britain’s first mass production car.

Above Gary Bishop, 1929, Austin 7, Blaue Maus Special, Prescott, 2010.

Thanks for popping by, look forward to sharing Part 2 on the Austin 7’s legacy and it’s tomorrow, don’t forget to come back now !

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Satellite of affectionate derision – Trabant 601

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Continuing on yesterdays East European theme here are a couple of pics of a Trabant 601 Station wagon. The Trabant name meaning satellite was inspired by the Russian Sputnik space programme.

The 601 was third air cooled 2 stroke model to come from VEB Sachsenring in Zwickau East Germany. In from production from 1965 – 1990 it is powered by a 27 hp 600 cc / 36 cui two cylinder, two stroke engine, which was relatively easy to maintain, to get to the underside of the car for instance, two people could easily lay the car on its side !

The Trabant body work is made of Duraplast the first to use recycled material mostly wool and cotton waste from the Soviet Union and phenol resins from the East German dye industry. Early examples had no fuel gauge but used a dipstick to determine the volume of fuel in the tank which sat atop the engine. Since the car had no fuel pump other than gravity to feed the carburettor.

Though seen with affectionate derision these cars are still used as daily drivers and still used in competition, a Trabant was also the star of a film called Go Trabi Go !

Thanks for dropping by, don’t forget to come back now !

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From way back in the USSR – GAZ 21

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Today’s post is dedicated to my friends at TNF, Alexander, Robert S and Alexey who last week unwittingly conspired to introduce me to the delights of Russian Truck Cross.

I don’t have any pictures of Russian trucks but I did find these pictures of a GAZ 21 in my archive taken at the old East /West German border crossing at Marienborn on the A2 between Hannover and Berlin. The GAZ 21 was designed by Lev Yeremeev who appears to have taken his styling queues from the ’52 – ’56 Ford Mainline.

The three series of this model were in production from 1956 – 1970 powered by either a 2,445 cc / 149 cui 4 cylinder engine or in a few cases by a 5520 cc / 336 cui V8. These vehicles were used as taxi cabs, police interceptors and estate versions, known as GAZ 22’s were used as ambulances.

Thanks for dropping by and as they might say in Russia, Не забудьте вернуться сейчас!

PS some fab pics of GAZ 21’s on the race circuit here.

Correction : it turns out that the V8 cars mentioned above were made for the KGB and actually known as GAZ 23’s with more or less identical bodies to the GAZ 21 in order not to attract any attention from the observed populace. Thanks to Alexander for the new information.

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Halloween Special – Fafnir Machtigen Werke Special

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To put you into the mood for the weekends festivities here is Oliver Way driving BR Thompsons Fafnir Machtigen Werke Special with a non automobile 10 litre / 610 CUI engine seen here at Loton Park.

The car does does always appear with the scary radiator cover, as can be seen here at Prescott.

Fafnirs in production from 1908 – 1927 had in line 4 cylinder engines no bigger than 3990 cc 243 cui.
I am wondering if anyone knows where the huge engine came from, or what type of circa 1918 chassis, with only rear wheel brakes this is?

Thanking you in anticipation of your responses.

Thanks for dropping by, wishing everyone a scary Halloween weekend, don’t forget to come back now !

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Adding Lightness 50 years on – Caterham 7 Superlight

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The Caterham 7 Superlight comes in two sizes regular S3 as the original Lotus 7 and the SV which is 4.3″ wider to accomodate those of us who were not born with jockey size hips.

Colin Chapman’s guiding principle when conceiving his vehicles including the Lotus 7 of which the Caterham 7 is the direct descendent was to add lightness, which in his day meant extensive use of aluminium and on the Superlight shown here means extensive use of carbon fibre including the mudguards and dashboard.

Engine options for the Superlight are 150 hp Ford Sigma, 210 hp or 263 hp Ford Cosworth Duratec. The latter option should be able to propel you from 0 – 60 in 2.88 seconds and if your head is still attached to the rest of your body on to 150 mph.

I’d like to finish by wishing my fellow ‘The Prisoner‘ fan and ‘Rowdy‘ buddy from Brevard, North Carolina, Steve Arnaudin a very Happy Birthday.

Thanks for dropping by, don’t forget to come back now ! BSY !

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The Spirit that never breaks down – Rolls Royce Silver Spirit.

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The radiator grill design and tragic Spirit of Ecstasy mascot makes Rolls Royce one of the few instantly recognisable brands no matter what age or model. The mascot on this model instantly retracts if dislodged allegedly preventing injury to pedestrians and making the item much harder to collect by even the most determined fans of the Beasty Boys.

The Silver Spirit was a development of the Silver Shadow with a new body and suspension that brought RR into the 1980’s.

Sufficiently powered by a 6750cc / 411 cui V8 the Silver Spirit and slightly longer Silver Spur no longer featured the Citroen licensed self levelling suspension of the Silver Shadow but one using a Girling automatic hydraulic ride height control system riding on gas charged shock absorbers.

The Registration of this vehicle suggests that this might be a 1984 model but the alloy wheels to my not so well trained eye look to be of a more recent vintage. The Silver Spirit/Spur series is the twin of the Bentley Mulsanne / Eight series.

The Silver Spirit is the only Rolls Royce model that has ever come in to my hands, albeit briefly in my capacity as quality controller at a Volvo Garage, it certainly is an impressive machine to be seen driven around in, the ride quality is superb but the feel of the car with its spindly steering wheel and column shift left me feeling I was driving a very well appointed 1972 Volvo 144.

It should always be remembered that a Rolls Royce never ‘breaks down’, but if not looked after properly it might ‘fail to proceed’.

Erratum: in response to a question about the Citroen SM suspension on October 20th I stated that ‘Rolls Royce / Bentley took out licenses to use similar (Citroen hydropneumatic self levelling) systems on the Silver Shadow/T, Silver Spur/Mulsanne’ in fact as I have written above the Silver Spirit/Spur have a Girling self levelling systems. Apologies for any confusion that arose.

Hope you have enjoyed your stay, don’t forget to come back now !

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Bristol’s big seller – Bristol 401

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28 10 10 Erratum this blog was originally posted with pics I thought were of a Bristol 401 in good faith, however it has transpired thanks to Sinclairstinton & Geoffrey Hawkins at BOCForum@yahoogroups that the car pictured was in fact a Bristol 403.

Since the information posted on the 401 has proved useful and interesting to at least one Bristol owner I have decided to remove the original pictures from the text and write a new blog to cover the Bristol 403, and post new photo’s of 401’s kindly sourced from the archive of Teb Marius and taken by John Lomas. The original text remains with additions in italic :-

Source Teb Marius

Continuing the 100th anniversary of the Bristol aeroplane company todays vehicle is the Bristol 401, which took its styling direction from a prototype by Carrozzeria Touring in 1948. The big external change from the Bristol 400 was the addition of large side lights in the front wing and hidden door handles.

Source Teb Marius

Internally the BMW based 6 cylinder engine was upgraded from 80 to 85 hp with the use of improved carburettors.

Source Teb Marius

The 401 had a very low drag coefficient of the order of 0.36 comparable to many modern vehicles, which helped the vehicle reach 97.3 mph. Between 1948 and 1953 611 of these vehicles were built making it Bristol’s all time best seller !

The model was so popular that in 1955 Mr. and Mrs. Glasby in a Bristol 401 with a total of 1497 points won class B of the second Ndola Rally in Northern Rhodesia now known as Zambia.

Note: Teb did offer some photos of 401’s in concours condition however I am a huge fan of original patina and will always show vehicles on this blog with original patina over re sprayed vehicles where I have the choice.

Photobucket

Posted with kind permission of the copyright owner John Lomas.

As can be seen from the fabulous photo above the 401 (green closest to the camera) and 403 are almost indistinguishable if like me your not an expert, the 403 has a small chrome numeral badge to the rear of the bonnet, the bumper grill is chromed on the 403, there is a chrome numeral badge on the boot of the 403 and the roundel on the 403 Bristol badges are dark red as opposed to the orange on the 401.

Apologies for any confusion arising from my original post thanks to everyone who helped correct the error.

Thanks for popping by, wishing everyone a thriving Tuesday, don’t forget to come back now !

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