1937 AUSTIN 7 'RUBY' - I know NOTHING about this car
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- Опубликовано: 5 янв 2024
- #austinseven #prewar #vintagecars
A few days ago, I was priviledged to be invited to test drive three cars from the wonderful @greatbritishcarjourney 's 'Drive Dad's Car' range.
The second car I chose to try is nearly 90 years old. I didn't break this one, though I did try...
You, too, can drive this car and lots of others like it (only not as good or cool as this one, obvs)
Great British Car Journey: greatbritishcarjourney.com
Drive Dad's Car experience: drivedadscar.com
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It's such a British road test! Rain, misted up windows, wonderful.
I love that this Museum doesn't object to having their classics taken out in the rains. Too many collectors consider that their treasures will dissolve in rain and hide em away. This is brilliant.
I don't think they were too pleased about it, but with amount of coverage their cars have had on here over the past couple of weeks, a bit of water was worth it I expect. That said, the ones with wooden bits (like this) are best kept in the dry, hence I cut this one short.
04:03 It appears to have trafficators fitted (look at the door pillar at 13:59) - I think that's what the little lever at the top of the steering wheel boss controls.
I was too scared to pull levers in case I broke something!
@@UPnDOWN Okay, that's given me a laugh! That little lever on the top of the steering wheel boss also featured on the Wolseley 6/90 and Austin A99 Westminster.
I have a 1938 Ruby, the same model as you are driving... No performance but incredibly fun to drive.! It is a talking point wherever I go, and raises a smile... You rediscover the pleasure of the journey rather than the getting there. 40 mph seems so fast.!!
Loved this, despite lack of visibility giving me the absolute fear! 😮
So very very envious! Definitely going back again soon to drive her again. It’s the most beautiful experience that’s legal that I believe you can buy for £65!
My father actually did have one as his first car shortly after the war and he did a tour in it with my Mother, from Cambridge, up to his wartime stomping grounds in Scotland. He was fond of recounting how he had to go up the “rest and be thankful” pass in reverse because the old road alignment (still there) was very steep and reverse was a lower gear than first. His engine was not in the first flush of youth by all accounts. I still hope to buy one one day and repeat their grand tour. ❤
My grandad had a ruby, we used to go to Skegness from Sheffield each year in it. I remember there was very little room inside, we sometimes had to get out to allow it to go up big hills.
I've got a van like that.
Indicators are the silver knob on top of the steering wheel hub, I think.
I drove the Ruby last year along with the Bentley Turbo and the XJS convertible. Safe to say that the Ruby was my favourite car to drive followed by the Bentley.. You're just so engaged driving it and you're very aware that you're driving something from another era. Just wonderful 👍
It really is.
Mega, I drove the same car there 18 months ago for my birthday, was great fun! I'm only round the corner too, would have loved pop and say hi and thanks for the channel 😎
Next time!
Brilliant video. So many laughs 😂 Your comment asking who’s going to pick up the baton is spot on. Fingers crossed, a new generation will start to appreciate these vintage cars while they are relatively cheap, otherwise they’ll vanish and that would be a tragedy.
Pre war classics are serious bargains and I suspect they will maintain their appeal.
Yeah, that's my worry, but there are youngesters working on heritages railways now, so I suspect there will be some people around to take them on, the issue is how many.
Back in the late 50s my Dad took my Mum and both their Mums to Cornwall from Newcastle several times in a 7. Took 2 very long days to get there and I for one applaud his tenacity. Wouldn't mind a go meself!
That's legendary! And there's me squirming about trying to drive Hilda to Scotland...
It's something you need to do, if only once. I've found plenty of ektachrome slides of my folks and the olds at Polperro and Marazion, but none yet of the car. There's got to be one somewhere, he loved his slide photography.
There are still plenty of us around who started their driving with Austin Sevens! In fact I only drove Austin Sevens for the first fifteen years of my driving life, and many of us still drive them on a regular basis. You need to find an Austin Seven, or VSCC, trial to see them still being driven competitively - they put up with untold abuse!
I've watched some of the trials vids before. I think I need to try that one day!
My grandad had an old Morris thousand with FlipOut indicators. I remember it like it was yesterday. A little switch on the dashboard made out of Bakelite with a green light in the middle, to show when it was out. Very high-tech.😂
As a child I remember seeing many of these around the town, nice to see one again. Nowadays I'm completely up to date, my daily drive is a 1961 Morris Minor 😁
Ooh, that's modern!
Thank you for the invaluable driving tips. Like many people, I hope to 'have a go' in that very car later this year. Mind you it is the improved version compared to the ten-year-old Seven that my Dad bought as his first car at around the time that the GBCJ one was built!
Keep up the good work!😀
Any time!
A rectangle of doom from the wiper there.
More of an acre!
The turn signals are traficators that are activated by the switch above the steering wheel hub.
Excellent little road test Rich, shame about the weather put a dampner on the day, not a fan of prewar cars but I could be swayed with this.
Have you ever 'driven' a horse?!
😂😂😂😂😂
Marvelous again! 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
What a fantastic idea, really interesting, must give this a try. Thank you
Rainy. Lovely. Austin Seven. Thanks for sharing this driving around the block in 30's style. See you then --- Martin
This was my Dad's first car, yes i am that old! I remember a story he told about trying to get up a hill with a car full and they had to get out and walk because the car didn't have the power to make it up full!
Similarly, my dad talked about having to go up some steep road/tracks in reverse!
I drive past here most days. Really should go one day.
Excellent. Back in the eighties there was one parked outside of a local (to me) pub. It was fine until '87 when there was a pretty fierce storm. A tree got blown down which literally flattered the poor little yhing.
Loved the subtle zoom in to the indicator lever!
Unintentionally ironic...
just gorgeous
akchually, standard gauge is 4' 8.5" but I get the analogy. I'd love to have a go in a 7 one day, I had a go in a Morris eight from the forties & that's genuinely a fun experience so I imagine a 7 would be similar
I remembered I forgot to include the half an inch afterwards, and that's quite an omission as the half inch is normally half an inch I can't afford to forget.
@@UPnDOWN Half an inch makes all the difference
That'd be the one I'd choose, having perused what's on the books. The next a Minor then the MK1 Mini, followed by the XJS of course!
A great review from someone who purposely came unprepared and was a long way removed from their comfort zone. This could be your style of car review video, because it really suits your personality 👍
Thanks 🙂
Lovely little Austin but what a spectacular BX🙂
My mum & dad’s Sunbeam tandem (yes the Sunbeam who did the cars) had the drum brakes from an Austin 7.
I don't know much about the Austin 7, but I do know that James Herriot (Christopher Timothy) in the lovely 1978 BBC TV series "All Creatures Great and Small" based on books by Alf Wight drove an Austin 7. The TV series is set in the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. James was a newly qualified vet practicing in the Yorkshire Dales under Siegfried Farnon (Robert Hardy) and his younger and immature but charming brother Tristan (Peter Davison). The TV series was hugely popular here in Denmark and had a total of 90 episodes that have been broadcast several times over the years.
🙂I think Siegfried Farnon, who ran the veterinary practise in 'Darrowby', had a nice reliable Rover of the period. James' Austin was somewhat less reliable as I recall, and Siegfried ably batted off any suggestions to replace it well into the long grass. That sounds true to life. The books were more like a memoir, I think, with all the names changed.
@@frglee The fictional town of Darrowby in the TV series is actually the small market town of Thirsk in North Yorkshire. The name Thirsk is derived from the Old Norse word þresk meaning fen or lake. The word has been lost in Danish and Norwegian, but is preserved in Swedish as träsk (trɛsːk) which today means swamp/wetland, but also a lake.
Channel 5 here in the UK have re-made All Creatures Great and Small. It is still very popular. You can visit the original vet's practise in Thirsk, it is a museum now. I know I am biased, but it is a gorgeous part of the world.
@@Zadster The countryside in many places in England is incredibly beautiful. I spent a year at high school in Canterbury and remember it with great pleasure and I have since visited England many times. When I went to school for a year in Canterbury, I had a friend from Scarborough and he was very aware of the area's Nordic heritage. Unfortunately, I did not know as much about the subject then as I do today, so I could not contribute with significant knowledge beyond deciphering the names of certain English towns such as Kirby/Kirkby which is the same as Kirkeby in Danish/Norwegian. The name Kirkeby consists of kirke + by, i.e. church + town. In other words, a town with a church.
@@Hvitserk67 Thanks. I love old cars and philology.From USA.
I remember the guy on bangers and cash saying pre war cars are cheap because nobody really wants them 😮
Video should be called "How to drive an Austin 7 when you can't see out the window cuz it's so steamed up." Also I had a look at the Great British Car Journeys website the other day. I like it about 10x more than I already did because I saw you could drive an MG ZS 180.
The ZS 180 would be a car that is totally wasted on that course. That needs to go on the road, to be fair, but I can see why they've included it. I really liked mine!
@@UPnDOWN Still really want one despite the lack luster build quality. I’ve heard they’re a car best driven when you’re driving the nuts off it.
its like a big pram with an engine awesome
Hey buddy...from Warehouse Point, USA---you made me laugh out loud....but it has character and I want to own one. While the fascists were doing the VW...the Brits were doing this home-style, friendly little beast.
I was already mocking you for not knowing where the indicators are...... :D
1930s driving? I had an MG Midget in the 80s and it steamed up just like that. In the winter it used to start raining inside halfway to work when the ice melted on the inside of the hood. Happy days.
My 2001 MG ZS180 used to steam up like this, in fairness!
Good on you for taking pity on that lovely old car. Having said that it must be pretty tough to put up with all the use it must get especially trundling around that short circuit.
Yeah, i can't imagine the cars enjoy it too much, but they have a dedicated maintenance depot there and the cars are maintained accordingly, so I think all is well. Much better than sitting around on display!
My dad's family towed a cart with their Austin 7 when their carthorse died. Just saying.
Yes ! If I was there I would be wanting to try the & and the Minor. Pity it is 550 miles away according to google....
I definitely would want a dry day as it would be best not to be driving around in a steamed-up box.
My mother had a 1937 Ruby. Unfortunately, it suffered a broken crankshaft. The original motor in the 7 only had 2 bearings, (one at each end). The crankshaft tended to whip, seriously curbing an already modest power output. In 1936, Austin introduced a third main bearing, which stiffened the shaft to the point it would break.
Obviously, the museum's briefing of drivers is inadequate. It has semaphore indicators, which stick out of the door pillars. As one of the other commentators points out, the little tab above the steering wheel hub operates them.
The ''speedy '' engine put in Speedys and some Nippys or ''65''s actually had wells in the crankcase so that if the two bearing crankshaft did whip you did not smash the case up! It is surprising they went at all if you looked at the early oiling system, just pipes squirting into wells on the crankshaft webs! Spit and hope or what!
That is very true about needing people to want to drive these cars. I like to see them but I've no desire to own one as they are so basic. Like most people I would probably drive something newer like a Morris 1000.
Guess you never drove a J4 van then with the wandering steering. Their party trick apart from wandering and, you were sat over the front wheels was a gear lever coming off in your hand when driving. Oh and the frontal crash protection of a paper hanky!
Haha! No, I haven't.
I watched your video bask-to-back with HubNut's test of the same car. The difference in your reviews is significant and together they give a very good impression of what the car is like.
I just love those little references to Citroëns all the time.
Lad it does have an indicator if you look on two sides of the cab you'll see why you don't do hand signals.
So I discovered!
My Great Aunt Ethel had a Ruby! She drove it, & an ambulance, during WW2 apparently, until some pesky Nazi dropped a shell through the roof - hence I never had the pleasure of a trip in it. She was not happy, as you can imagine...
No, I imagine she was 'miffed'.
😂 the indicator switch is obviously at the steering wheel.
In the pissing rain on a tight time schedule having driven three totally different cars all day, I missed it! I didn't even know if it had indicators.
My dad had a Ford 8. Was there one at the museum by any chance?
I don't think so.
Light years ahead of the 1950s Fords IMO.
My granddad 1st car was an Austin 7
A bit of cord to open the door, just like on a Ferrari F40. It’s a little beauty. 😂
It's pretty much the same, really.
The Austin 7 was used in the television series all creatures great and small not sure if it was a Ruby
The one in the Herriot museum certainly is but having read the books I suspect the actual car was a much earlier 7, llike the 1923 one Ian (Hub Nut) drove a year ago. Alf Wight started his first job in 1937 and he described the Austin as clapped out and ancient. A Ruby would have been brand new at that time.
You compared the Austin 7 to a BX...
As someone who daily drives a BX, after looking at you driving the Austin, it is indeed exactly like driving a BX.
Your BX must be broken haha!
@@UPnDOWN It is ever so slightly broken, yes. Main problems: clutch cable which was made from multiple other clutch cables and seems to have originally been for a diesel BX (not a petrol), the carburetor refusing to cooperate even after a rebuild (it developed a stalling problem since then and also sometimes applies the autochoke mid drive thus shutting off one of my two chambers), the throttle cable has developed a sticking issue, the speedometer cable has developed a buzzing sound (and the dial also vibrates a bit), and several other issues. So yes, slightly broken.
"It's really old tech." Yeah...
You won't get this level of insight anywhere else (except infant school, perhaps)
Does anybody know how a fixed centre steering wheel works? Something to do with gyroscopes and magnetic North no doubt. I'll probably Google it when I sober up.
my dads first car was a ruby
13:11 i didn't know you had a SM. 😂
I don't think he likes to talk about it.
You wouldn't do, I haven't told anybody.
“My comfort zone is somewhere over there at the moment.”
So thats where you parked the C6?
I learnt to drive in one. Im 20 lol
Bloody hell!
@@UPnDOWN yep deffinetly an experance then it was my cuurent 1963 landrover
Eventually,he wiped the windscreen!.
It goes against all my natural instincts to do it!
I was told my Grandmother had an Austin 7 Ruby. She then moved to a Fiat Topolino before sticking with various small Flats (500, 850) until a string of DAFs into the 70's.
I've noticed the price of 1950's cars coming down in price A30's/35's etc. it's unfair really. It's cars from the 30's and 40's that should be the price of a house, not dull 1970's Fords
They're so cheap I can see me doing it, one day!
Oh, you are so young and innocent. "It doesn't seem to have indicators fitted." No, that is the lever at the top of the steering wheel hub, which operates the swing out (if they're working properly) and light up (if they're working properly) semaphore arms. By the late 1930s, cars were getting recognisably modern: in the early 1930s, the steering wheel hub would probably have the ignition timing control, too; and maybe a hand throttle.
The 7 was very much Austin's econobox, and lots of aspects (like suspension and brakes) were a bit, well, designed to a price. Mostly Austin cars were rather well made, and my 1938 Austin 12 (my first car) was quite a smooth drive at 45 mph, though my then girlfriend insisted on driving it at 60, which was terrifying to me and not good for the car.
All the people who had an Austin 7 new are now dead, but in the 1950s and 1960s they were very popular as a cheap car to modify, or fix up, or just bash around in. So there probably are still people who had an Austin 7 when they were young, but they had probably paid about GBP 25 for it (as I did for my 12 in about 1964). The signal box hand brake was such a buzz; you started your progress with a due sense of ceremony.
Oh, and you could buy driving gloves which incorporated a kind of duster on the back of the hand so you could keep the inside of your screen clear. Heaters remained an optional extra for a surprisingly long time; but the 7 was too price-conscious to have opening front quarterlights, which are what you used to try to keep the screen demisted, with moderate success.
Some proper info there!
@@UPnDOWN It's not so much info, as being used to stuff. I was surprised that you, who know so much about cars and who drive so many (including weird stuff), were a bit lost in the 7. And then it made me realise just how much cars have changed in my lifetime. Up until about the late 1980s, driving a car meant you had to be pretty much on top of the mechanics of operation, even at normal speeds. After that, cars were better sorted and the ergonomics got better and more standardised, and you had more attention to give to the road.
Yeah, the 7 is WAY before my time. Way before anything I've ever been in.
8:30 me neither, but now I’m googling the specs.
Top speed is 47mph apparently, so there is no 0-60 times.
That’s even slower than my C1!
P.s. what a mint place.
Well I wasn't going to say anything, but...
(When I do merch can I nick your idea and just put 'Did I mention I won Radwood in 2023?' on a hoodie?)
😆
Kitch's Mist-ery Tour 😂
Fogg-ery tour morelike!
Three stud wheels? I didn't know it was French.
Or a Smart car...
For the sake of every brit in the land, you need to become famous. Fucking crying laughing the whole video. Brilliant 😂
Haha! I don't think I'd like that very much (apart from the riches!)