This Is The Weirdest Little Car I've Ever Driven
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2022
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In this video I drive and review an Austin A30!
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I can remember travelling over 500 miles in one of those on holiday. There was mum dad and us three kids with holiday baggage for 2 weeks at the seaside. The water pump gave up at about 100 miles and I walked with my father to the nearest town to get a new one. Dad fitted it and we were on our way. Happy days.
how much or little room did it give him to fix it? these british cars are very well laid out, but i'd imagine they used every bit of extra room to make the cabin as nig as possible!
that´s a real quest for holidays , i can´t imagine that car with a entire family plus the baggage on a 500 miles trip, one could get out of the car to stretch the legs without stoping the car and walk by it´s side, i remenber a friend of mine going in holidays with his parents and sister with a fiat 1.1L engine and a mountain of holidays baggage on top of the car ,this in the way having a mountain road and roads at the time were very bad going at 100km/h was almost impossible lot´s crashes with the bmw´s 2002
Never owned an A30 but when I was a kid ( late 1950's), we went on holiday from Dundee to London ( 480 miles) in a Standard Companion ( an estate car not much bigger than the A30) with three adults and three kids. I was squeezed into the space between the back door and rear seats. The luggage was all on a roof rack. Our first stop in London was a Transport Cafe car park and when they opened the back door, I tumbled out because my legs were so cramped I couldn'r move them. Happy days.
Our family did the same in the 1970s in a reliant Regal van with a 700cc engine. Dad would stop every hour to brew tea at the side of the road. Such good childhood memory's
@@mromatic17 loads of room in the engine bay. The little 803cc engine looks like a sewing machine left in the middle of an empty room in that massive engine bay. I don’t think the clever and efficient packaging came along until the mini which effectively replaced this (ish)
I had a Girlfriend who had an Austin A35, an improved (slightly) version of this car. It was quite fun. Btw very few people in Britain had a a weight problem in the 1950/60s as post WWII rationing didn’t end until 1958. We fitted inside without a problem.
no gmo food back then too!
@@fidelcatsro6948or SAD
Standard American Diet
Ergo Chubby Chops owner
The British population as a whole had never been so healthy during rationing, or indeed since
Last rationing ended in 1954.
I was in a band back in the sixties and our bass player had the van version of one of these. He told me once that he nearly got into trouble with his Mother because his girlfriend left her footprints all over the back window. His Mother saw him rapidly removing the evidence and expressed surprise as she had never seen him clean anything before. He couldn't think of an excuse and just shrugged. We are in our seventies now, but I know he still remembers that Austin with some fondness.
Oh yes, this is my kind of car! I grew up in Britain during the 50s and was absolutely passionate as a boy about these beautiful little cars. We had lots of funny little ones because the country was broke after the war and people needed something cheap to drive around in. My biggest regret was that my dad never bought one (he didn't have the money, but that was no excuse!)
The weirdest one we owned was a hillman husky. A variant of the hillman imp with a greenhouse on the back. I love cars from that era, foreign or British. I even asked someone if i could take a sniff of their interior recently. (If you know, you know)
Evolution to the point of being 6-1 tall wasnt on the mind of our car makers. People that tall were probably easy targets in the war so they were a rare breed. If you were really tall and alive you were likely aristocracy and owned a Bentley anyway
He may have been ahead of the rest as there was no collapsible steering column which earned them and the morris minor a terrible reputation for driver chest injuries in accidents where the spoked steering wheel would collapse and the steering column acted as a spear to penetrate the chest ... no seat belts them there days.
That is a valid excuse, not having the money. Buying a car on tick/HP or PCP you are paying more for the car in the long run that is depreacating so a double whammy, so if you don't have any money, you will have even less for the rest of your life if you go down that route. Something I have never done. If I haven't the cash it doesn't get bought. The trick is to save up for things and always have something in the back pocket for that rainy day.
I had one of these cars in the 1970’s. You failed to mention that the headlight dip switch is on the floor. Very fond memories. On a British made car, it's not a trunk, it's a boot! 🤣🤣
Great vlog!!!
Thanks for putting the "Boot" in . I learnt to drive in the A 35 as my Father wasn't happy having a "L" plate on his A 90. Best wishes.
My first Mini had the dip switch on the floor, and the starter button.
@@terrystevens5261 because the battery was in the boot so they ran a long cable with the button in the middle. those cables were just right for making jump leads.
My Mk2 Ford Zephyr had a foot operated toggle dip switch too, next to the clutch. You had to prioritize your left foot between declutching and headlight dipping.
@@johnpoulter Did you also zig zag down the road to get the last dregs of fuel into the petrol pump lol.
One bonus of being old now is remembering the great British cars that we had back in the fifties and sixties ❤️
The other bonus is that we don’t have to rely on them anymore! We became highly adept roadside mechanics largely because of them.
I had a pair of Big Healeys, the three-litre jobs. One a '59 BN6 and the other a '60 BN7. One obvs had been raced it still had the driver roll bar and triple carbs. The other was just a normal 3000.
Happy days!
I love the power and look of the Austin-Healey 3000 MK III
A friend had one, took it on a road trip up the California coast. Felt like there was s fire in the cockpit, there was so much heat coming through the floorboards. 😝 But it was a small price to pay for so much fun!
@@ThreenaddiesRexMegistus In 1969, I bought a 1957 A35, very similar for £42..10s..0d. It had 169,000 miles on the clock and it did me for a further 24,000 miles. British cars of that time were great. They were generally reliable IF THEY WERE SERVICED, easy to repair and parts were cheap and available everywhere ....... Today, DIY repairs are almost impossible, parts cost a fortune and you will have to wait 4 days for them to be ordered and delivered. In the 60s, MOTs were turn up and go, no booking, took 10 minutes and cost only a few shillings. From time to time, I drove into London for the evening and I parked in Covent Garden after 6.30 for free. Bring back the old days
Am i weird for asking someone i could sniff their interior? They had an old car that filled me with nostalgia, they had a special smell. Glue, petrol, wood, leather and sweat maybe?
One of the interesting things you could see in this video was the hole in the front bumper to crank-start the engine if the battery died. A lot of mini-cars designed in the 1950s still had this feature and it wasn't difficult because of the engines small size and low compression. The hand crank usually had a dual purpose and could also be used for the screw jack.
My wife and I have an Austin A40 Farina with a cranking hole.
One day the starter completely died. We hand cranked it, and made it to my in-laws' place, where I dismantled the starter (Lucas!) in the laundry and found that some connexion had come adrift from the main bus.
Fortunately, even in the dim light, I could see the bus was tinnerd, so I tried to resolder the joint -- about seven or eight times before it took.
We were able to drive homee.
Next morning, I had to crank it again for my wife.
That afternoon, in better light at home, I discovered that the "tinned bus" was actually made of aluminium. I don't know how I managed to get the solder to hold as long as it did.
But those little 803 or 998 engines certainly weren't hard to turn over.
You just had to make sure you didn't wrap your thumb around the handle in case the engine kicked back, which could result in it being dislocated.
I always cranked my first car in the winter to loosen the thick oil before engaging the starter to save the battery.
In the 70s/80s I was a fireman in the UK. Our trucks had 5675cc Rolls Royce straight 8 petrol engines with crank handle option. Once a week we had to start them by hand. If the engine is tuned correctly it's not difficult.
And to undo the wheel nuts.
In Australia, they used to race Austin A30s in the 1950s-60s. A very easy car to modify. Famous Australian racing driver, Peter Brock, started out racing an A30.
We still see them raced in the UK!
Brock's was highly modified with a 3 liter 6 cylinder engine (hot Holden [GM/chev] 186cubic inch I think). Very successful at hill climb races before he got into big time racing.
My Dad bought an A30 Van in 1964 when I was 3 years old! He bought a kit to add two rear seats and child restraints (early seat belts). It was tiny but functional, and was our first family car after a motorcycle and sidecar combination. Wonderful memories of my late Father's ingenuity... he passed away in June aged 90. ❤
Same here. We bought a window kit and we cut out holes and fitted windows to the back.
God bless you and you Dad.
This was apparently a clever tax loophole.
Vans were cheaper than passenger vehicles so these conversion kits were really common.
I think the car in the video must be somewhat rare in actually having 4 doors but that is just a guess....
yes UK annual road tax was dearer for a passenger car than commercial, so vans were popular in UK. when visiting UK i was confounded by the double negative question, something like "is this vehicle not a vehicle with side windows fitted to the rear of the drivers door", could not work out if to answer yes or no. 4 door was quite common in Australia, 4 door was local manufactured and cheaper than the made in UK imported 2 door version, do not recall many vans. The bigger A40 had the commercial van and ute (pick up) options.
was Wallace & Grommit based on you and Dad?
Slight correction Tommy. The A series engine is not a BMC engine. It was an Austin engine long before BMC existed. The A series engine was also made under license by Nissan and was used in various sizes from 1.0L to 1.5L with an alloy head. I had a 69 Datsun 1000 with the 1.0 A10 engine in it.
Nissan took a good look at the three bearing crankshaft and 5,000rpm limits of the whippy crankshaft and said "we can do better".
And they did...
5 main bearing crank and I saw mine (in a Datsun 120Y (B210) coming back through 8,000rpm when the throttle plates iced up @ wide open throttle on the 2 barrel carb...
and I pushed the clutch in a poofteenth of a second too quickly as I turned off the ignition.....
then coasted 1 mile until the heat from the engine melted the ice in the carb...
reignited the engine and continued on my way.....
I did a return journey of 2.5 hour legs cruising @ 5,000rpm every week for 8 years, had the rings replaced @ 120K miles (the bore was deglazed in situ) and the clutch also replaced as it was down to 1/3 left.
Sold it after 11 wonderful years of automotive reliability...to a young family.
Great car, fantastic engine...
The A series was launched in 1951 with the A30. Austin and the Nuffield Group merged in March 1952 to become BMC
The last in hat DESIGH,was the AUSTIN A 40 SOMERSET
@@flybyairplane3528 wasn't the Perkins diesel based off the B series engine???
@@johnmiller4973 Fairly certain that the Austin Cambridge A55 Diesel was based on the B series engine.
There was also an A series Diesel (limited production).
My dad had one of these and it was considered a top of the range at the time, it had wing mirrors. You haven't told about the mpg. But at that time we only had tiny roads, so the "Little Cars" suited us just fine.
You can tell if it was a top-of-the-range model by whether it had a heater.
The top-of-the-range A35 Deluxe also had bumper over-riders.
Posh.
Is that a stock colour?
@@FinlayMacintyre-ti9li I own an A35, but my knowledge isn't 100% reliable. I believe it's NOT a stock colour. There was a pale blue called "speedwell", after a small flower. In the late 50s, a group of racing drivers got together and formed a tuning company named "Speedwell", because that was the name of their local telephone exchange. The drivers included Graham Hill, a future F1 world champion. Another driver was John Sprinzel, who raced A35s in the 1958 British Touring Car Championship. He created the Speedwell Sprite, based on an Austin Healey and mechanically near-identical to the A30/A35.
I learned to drive back in 1968 in an Austin A30 that my dad had bought in an auction (the number plate was LOT 22). He used it while his MK 2 Ford Cortina was being repaired after being wrecked while parked in the street. Your film brought back some great memories Thank you. Oh, one thing, I seem to remember that it only had 3 forward gears and definitely no synchro on first gear.
A friend of mine had a Minor convertible reg number LOT 32
10 Cars away!
My mum passed her test in the A35 she owned on Wednesday 13th September 1967, we nicknamed it 'Buzz'. On the Friday evening, after work and school she drove 120 miles down the M1 to my Grandparents in London. It rained, there were huge lorries everywhere, but we were so excited it didn't bother us at all. We loved that little car and went all over in it. Thanks for reminding me of some fabulous memories.
I passed my driving test in an A30 in 1961!!
Me to, happy days, with few worries.
These were a very common sight in Australian roads in the 50s and 60s. My family had one.
Yes and raced also. Peter Brock started his racing career racing an Austin A30.
I'm from Tasmania and as a kid my late father he may not had an A30 Austin but he had a Grey coloured Morris 1000 build around 1950. Then in 1965 he bought a Navy blue coloured Morris 1100 that had a top speed of 95 miles per hour.
These were still a common sight on New Zealand roads into the early 90s. 😅
That was my moms first car back in the mid 1960s. You will notice the hole in centre of the front chrome bumper (or fender to you guys). That was where the starting handle (crank handle?) went when the battery was below par and it was used quite often!
A girl I woroked with in Croydon in about 1965 had one, but she complained it would not go fast. I drove it about 50 miles to my home in Sittingbourne, and sure enough , it would not go above 25 mph. I was not Mr Popular on the road! I found that the mounting flange of the carburettor had been over tightened and bent, so that it was leaking air. I fixed it with a new homemade gasket. I drove it back to Croydon at 60mph plus, no problems.
The indicators are semaphore, not “semi four”👍🏻
The A35 differentiates visually from the A30 by having a bigger back window too btw.
it also had a slightly larger cc engine
It also had a way shorter gear lever which felt SO cool after the A30's.
@@rogerwatt8491 My first car was a little 850cc mini, the gearstick came up from the front bulkhead, must have been over two feet long lol. the later mini's had a remote gearstick that rose up between the leading edge of the front seats.
@@terrystevens5261 I've heard that sometimes the inertia of the early long gearlever could make the car jump out of gear on a really bumpy road.
@@Martindyna worn out engine mounts and or steady bar rubbers.
I love reviews of odd or unknown cars like this. Who cares about another Mustang or Corvette etc when you get to see something like this beauty on the road. Guess that’s why I own a 1968 Saab 96.
I think they are a lot more known about this side of the pond where they were made (something like half a million of all variants made from memory). Cool little quirky cars. I completely agree on the sentiment. Give us content about old quirky stuff that we don’t know about 🙂
I have an enormous amount of appreciation for Gullwing, Mustang, Corvette, E Type... But the amount of warm emotions that so called "bread and butter" classic cars stir up in me... Especially European ones, which is logical for European car girl who works as an artist on commission for local classic car community - Opel Olympia, Volvo PV444, Mercedes 170, Auto Union DKW 1000, Ford Taunus, Fiat Topolino, Saab 96, Peugeot 404, Fiat 1300, Citroën Traction Avant, Opel Rekord, Ford Capri, Austin Cambridge... And don't even get me started on so called "People's cars" like Beetle, 2CV, Mini, Fiat 500, Zastava 750, Trabant, Syrena 105,Renault 4 and cars like the one in this video.
It's far from being unknown in the UK. Your comment is a very US-centric one... For more fun with small European cars I can suggest the following You Tube channels:
* I Drive A Classic
* HubNut
* Furious Driving
* Twin Cam
* Alex's Assets
* JayEmm On Cars
Ivan Dutton thrashed his race prepared A30 on his channel last year. "SHED RACING - A30 Blowing Out the Cobwebs"
It's well worth watching! 🥳
My dad's first car was an A35, he once managed to take a photo of the speedo showing 75mph!
Had he got that wrong I'd not be typing this...
My first car, ancient even then. The GUG 808 (number plate) hand painted in blue like this one, given to me by my dad in 1974 on the day I got my driver's license at 17 years old. I never got better than 58 mph out of it and at that speed it was terrifying. Like riding an out of control lawnmower . You don't mention the smell? Oil from the motor, gearbox and dif plus horse hair stuffed leather seats in hot weather was special. And not all windows stayed where you put them, we used to wedge them with wooden clothes pegs to keep them up.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. On a working holiday in the UK (from Australia) in the 1960's I bought the panel van version of this. They were everywhere in England and very cheap to buy second hand as the mini had replaced it in the showrooms. I loved the little car. I rigged up a bed in the rear luggage space and I took it on the hovercraft to France and toured Europe in it through Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and over the Brenner Pass to Italy. I went to Venice, Florence and Rome then back along the Italian and French Riviera to Monaco and Cannes etc then into Spain before returning to the UK through the wine regions of France. That little car was amazing. I broke a valve spring early in the trip which made the engine rattle a bit but it just kept going till I fixed in back in the UK. The only thing I had to watch was cornering, it would be the easiest car to flip over with it's narrow wheel base. In the UK in it's heyday it was affectionally known as the Baby Austin.
You were in the great tradition of Aussie world travelers. Good on ya mate.
I thought the baby Austin was the Austin 7.
@@donbrackenreg2270 you are correct, that was the first baby Austin. What a great little car that was. By the time I visited the UK in the mid sixties the A30 and A35 were being called the baby Austin although not it's official name. I suppose because they were the smallest of the Austin models around at that time.
@@johnphelps9788
A great little car was the Austin,
but to get in was really exhaustin'
You start with your feet
then half of your seat
but the rest of you had to be forced-in.
As my Mum used to quip about their Austin 7 ( 'Austin' to be pronounced 'Orsten' as per English upper-middle class)
(sorry for repeat posting)
Of course, the panel van version! I'd forgotten about those until I read your comment. They were popular when I was a kid in the 60s, and even into the 70s. I seem to remember that there were lots of green ones around.
Right until the early 80s in the Uk these were still relatively common small cars. They were known for being very good and reliable.
some Morris Minors still in Seattle
I grew up in the 90s and remember seeing these all the time.
There are still a few thousand Morris Minors left in the UK.
I suspect that your definition of "relatively common" coincides with my definition of ""fairly rare".
@@jeremydas723 They were rare by the early 80s. My grandmother's friend had one, and they said when they went on holiday to Scotland in it on the Motor-Rail (a train that you could put your car on), all the drivers who were there to put the car on the train were jostling to drive it because it was such a rare old car!
1:42 I think it was fairly common feature during the early years of motoring. The idea behind that was that you enter your vehicle by the passenger side on the sidewalk. It was much safer than standing in a middle of the road locking and unlocking your car while other traffic drove past you. And also thats why in early 90's minivans had only one sliding side door on the passenger side so it was much safer for kids to get in and out of the car.
That wasn't the reason on this car. The car was designed for right hand drive. All the cars have the lock on the right hand side ... i.e. the driver's side. The car in the video keeps that same arrangement despite being LHD. With car being so narrow it was easy for the driver to reach over and unlock the passenger door. Believe me the driver would not want to enter the car from the passenger side ... a contortionist or a child would manage it but not the average adult!
@@MrAdopado Yes, got to agree with you there. The steering wheel's been converted over to lhs but they seem to be using the British driving side door lock.
i think both reasons are correct, UK design right hand driver's door lock only, and in USA movies around that time showed common to get in passenger side and slide across the bench seat.
@@richlawrence4160 Good point. Definitely easier with a flat bench seat (and good legroom) than individually contoured front seats. By the 1970s things had moved on to both front doors having locks (sometimes vital if one froze) but back doors still had to be unlocked from inside. Brings back the memories, I had forgotten all this with modern central locking!
I think it was more to do with cost saving than safety, which was not much of a consideration in those days.
In 1966 I learned to drive in a two-door version of the A30, that was my father's. Prior to me learning to drive, we used to go camping in it all over the UK. With a roof rack on top carrying an old-fashioned canvas ridge tent (unbelievably heavy when wet!) and the boot full of all sorts of camping paraphernalia, as well as the back seat space, next to my mum, also full to the brim. I don't know how the car managed to get us up hill and down dale. One night, when I was around 15 y.o., we could find no camp site, so the three of us (mum, dad and I) slept in the car, in a lay-by. We were woken around 02:00am by the sound of Royal Navy Buccaneer and Phantom F4 jets taking off low over our heads. We were just off the end of the runway at the Yeovilton RNAS. It all seemed quite normal back then!
I suppose you have never seen English roads. They are very narrow. built for horse drawn wagons of the early1900s the only motorway was opened in 1958 2 lanes that's why the cars of this era are so small I remember my father bought his car in 1957 and it was the only car on our street of 60 houses When longer wheelbase cars came along they had difficulty navigating through the small towns and villages
I passed my test on a Ford Anglia in 1969. I live in Australia now and on one of my last return visits I hired a Mercedes. I wished I'd had the Anglia!
Continually baffled by the modern British tendancy to buy cars that are too big for the country we live in.
People were smaller then as well, shorter and thinner
@@johnmac8084 definitely thinner. 😁
Enjoyed your positive thoughts on this A30. The Austin badge on the grille is missing but never mind!
Have you not seen these and the A35 racing ? they are brilliant little cars, search out Goodwood Revival races and see them racing bigger stuff
AC/DC frontman , Brian Johnson races one of these little gems. Also, my dad had one many moons ago
These little 'peanuts' battling it out with the big Jags and Ford Galaxies,brilliant stuff!
In the early development days they were clocking silly average speeds for 24 hours, given the engine size. They were also often fitted with a supercharger in those days for serious touring!
You can still see them racing A30s, A35s and the later A40s (Which I had in the 1960s), at the Goodwood Rival every year. They are fun.
@@rogersmith8339 I raced my A35 in new Zealand in the late 60's with a Shorrock supercharger. Top speed was only 90mph due to the original rear diff low gears. Still want another one.
As a kid in the mid 60s they were everywhere. As well as the saloon they made a van and a pickup. Along with the Morris minor there were lots of them . Suddenly by the mid 1970s they just disappeared.
Yes - there were two in our street in London in the mid 70s but by 1980 I'm pretty sure they had gone. A bit like Mini Metros in that respect - they used to be everywhere then suddenly disappeared.
Popular conversions included a larger exhaust (freer flowing) and front drum brakes from an Austin A50, which made them a little more stoppable.
I remember a canary yellow one which drove in the Sydney inner suburbs in the early 1960s. It had a large diameter exhaust, and I believe a 1500 cc engine. I hope the brakes were modified.
One of my cousins had one which was in good condition except that the front screen used to leak and, in bad weather, the rear floor flooded, as it was lower than the front.
He drilled two 19mm holes in the floor and inserted wine corks.
A 35 had hydraulic brakes all round. The A30 had rod brakes on the rear which were a nightmare to adjust.
@@andrewblake2254 we saw very few of those, but the A50 front brakes would probably still have helped. It's good that Austin finally went all hydraulic.
I moved to the UK in 1968 from Canada. There were still a lot of these around and it was a bit of a culture shock, coming from a Pontiac Laurentian. Amusing and charming but very competent for a country with ancient villages with narrow streets and winding country lanes. The Pontiac would've been out of its depth off the motorway system.
Hard times needs must we were skint.
@@gerrysmith7031 given the choice now, I'd take the Austin!
We went the other way when I was 11 - Scotland to Upstate New York. From a Hillman Imp to a Buick Century station wagon. Blew our minds!
I was a tiny child when my family returned from Canada in 1964.
I recall a taxi ride, with a Ford Anglia in front of us.
My Dad and older brother were saying how stupid the Anglia's tail fins looked on a small car.
Tommy, the other name Trafficators were known by was “Semaphore” lights, since they folded out a bit like naval semaphore flags.
In Australia those indicators were often referred to as orange peel lights.
@@johnzenkin1344 that's the difference between appearance and function.
@@marieravening927 I’m Australian. I’ve never heard that name before. My 87 year old dad, always called them trafficators. He is English though.
We had one of these when I was young. Great economical car for an impoverished student. A big step up from a motorbike in the winter cold. Don’t bother with first gear unless you are starting uphill. Drivers were shorter back then and obesity was rare.
Thanks for sharing your story.... This was my first car I purchased in 1960 & had it for 5 years...travelled a lot in the country in Australia for work... just loved the car & learnt a lot about motor mechanics generally.... cheers from Australia 😀
I grew up with either an A30 or an A35 being one of the vehicles in Mum and Dad's "fleet". Sometimes it would be the only car that was still running well and would become the daily for Mum while Dad worked on one of the others. We also went away on a camping trip in an A30 - that boot is surprisingly spacious. She had a roof rack on and utilised, but there was the big tent, the pup tent for my sister and I, the toilet tent, sleeping bags and blankets, camp stove, clothing for all of us, food for a week, food for the animals, towels, assorted linen and both my parents (Dad at 6'1" and powerfully built being a bricklayer - and Mum at 5'5"), my 10 year old sister and 13 year old me, plus two large dogs and a cat. Two hundred plus miles of this and you were ready for anything.... The A30 was therefore always close to my heart and so naturally I had one as my first car.
There were two versions of the A30 - the first being the AS3 (1951 to 1953) with the circular speedo, trafficator switch mounted on the door side of the lower dashboard, door-top door opening mechanisms, side-entry fuel filler, smaller front grille with the Austin winged emblem between the grille and the bonnet lip. The second being the AS4 (or A2S4), which had a trapezoid central speedometer, the trafficator switch mounted where the central dashboard ash tray is in the AS3, the switches and ignition switch mounted on the bottom plinth of the dash directly under the speedo, the horn mounted in the centre of the steering wheel, a more conventional door-opener lever mounted at the top front of each door (similar to the Mini), the fuel filler mounted to the left of the registration plate on the rear boot panel and the boot lid opening up in a more conventional lever arrangement so water never went from the boot lid into the boot itself.
I had one of the later models, but still with the 803cc engine. This little racehorse produced a whopping 29 BHP when new (By the way - the model name was a combination of the letter A for Austin, followed by the number of horsepower the engine produced....obviously rounded up. (The A35 produced 34 BHP from its 948cc engine.)) My little A30 was the Deluxe version and had driver's and passenger's ash trays that were colour matched to the car, a heater, windscreen washers, monogrammed rubber floor mats, over-riders (or 'bumper guards' as some US people know them), a locking petrol cap and chromed trafficator stalks - all from factory! The car used just over a US gallon of oil every 500 miles. I used to call into the local petrol station and ask them to fill it up with oil and check the petrol for me. Four litres would be burnt and fired out that tiny one inch exhaust, although it used to do it very efficiently, as the plugs never got fouled. James Bond had to flip a switch in his Aston Martin to get a smoke screen, whereas my A30 did it all the time! It had also been painted in the textured style that only a wringer-mop and bucket can produce. The colour was a close match to the original, but the give-away was the odd string from the mop that was embedded in the thick house paint that had been used.
I had that little car up to 65mph once, but my Dad modified one of the ones we had by throwing away the 803 in favour of a worked 948 with twin carbs our of a wrecked Austin Healey Sprite, that would happily wind the speedo needle off the end of the 70mph gauge and keep going. Problem was that the standard brakes were not up to the task of pulling her up very quickly from anything over 50mph, so it used to take him a while. The drums also overheated very quickly, so by the time you'd slowed it from well-over 70 down to 60mph, she had nothing left but the gearbox to bring her to a halt.
An A35 has, as well as the bigger engine, a remote shifter on the gearbox (so it has a shorter stick closer to the seats), a painted grille with a chromed detail ring around it, indicators front and rear, an 80mph speedo and the chrome tails on the bonnet emblem and parking lights are longer than the A30. It also has a wrap-around wider back window than the A30's little rear arched one and this virtually eliminates blind spots. The Morris Minor 1000 might be the more popular and the more technically advanced by the time the A35 came off the line in 1957, but the A35 has it hands down for looks, character and ride comfort.
Great little video - always cool to see someone come in contact with one of these beasties for the first time and their reaction to the little car's eccentricities. I'm in New Zealand and they are still seen on a semi-regular basis - although nowhere near as common as they were about 20 years ago. I'd like to find myself another one.......
I noticed that the brake fluid reservoir was next to the front seat by your clutch foot so you cijkf undo it and top it up when you were driving along living in a hilly area this was useful
Don’t think I would want a conversation wit you. But any way.or as we say in Canada any hoo.
@@alanwilson6367 - As we say here in Kiwiland "No skin off my nose, mate. Yer don't give me the oo-ah's either by the sound of yer".
@@KiwiStag74 yer got that right.
Fascinating detailed memories. This is the sort of thing that becomes a goldmine to historians a hundred years on, if they can find it. Also a good reminder to us now of how well Britain used to do things, according to our particular circumstances, in those days, just before our pathetic leaders threw away all our high-quality engineering experience. Thank you.
This was a fascinating piece of nostalgia for me! I passed my Driving Test on my Dad's new A35 in 1957, and then bought myself an eight-year-old A30 in 1962, which I ran for four years. Two interesting varations I noticed on yours were a much smarter dashboard set-up, but also you have an OHV engine! In the UK the big difference between the A30 and the A35 was the progression from side-valve to OHV. Externally the rear window was enlarged and the radiator grill, chrome on the A30, was painted on the A35. The top speed was about 60 mph, but it cruised at very close to that for lengthy periods. It had synchromesh on all gears except 1st, but double-de-clutching was always advisable. And for a young single man the diminutive size had its advantages!
Thank you so much for this; so pleased you enjoyed the experience!
Were they sidevalve? I could have sworn that the A30 came out with an OHV engine, and the difference with the A35 is that it was a larger displacement.
@@uzaiyaroyou are correct. The A30 was 803cc and the A35 was 948cc, a much more powerful version of the same A series engine. The Morris Minor on the other hand, did start out with a side valve engine and then benefited from an upgrade to the 948cc Austin A-series OHV engine after Austin and Morris merged. It was then that it became known as the Minor 1000, a name that it kept even after the further increase to 1098cc.
An A30 van was my mum & dad's first car in New Zealand. They used to speak fondly of the travels they went on in it.
Argublythe Morris Minor is the real predcessor to the Mini as they share the same designer.
If you get chance, please try an early one, I own a late 52 Morris Minor and a mate 53 A30. Despite being an Austin man at heart, the Morris Minor is the nicer car to daily, being 4 inches wider and a little longer. Mind you, both are such fun to drive. Hello from the UK
I disagree... There is no direct lineage from the Morris Minor to the Mini, beyond the designer Alec Issigonis and few shared Lucas electrical components.
Issigonis had arrived at Longbridge in 1955 from Alvis, rather than from Morris on the merger with Austin in the spring of 1952, with a brief to design a completely new small car that would compete with bubble car imports... One of the requirements was that the all new car was to use an existing engine... the A Series, originally developed by Austin for the A30 two years prior to the merger with Morris. The Mini was originally to have had what later became known as the Hydrolastic suspension, developed by Issigonis and Alex Moulton whilst at Alvis, but it was still only a design concept when the Mini was rushed into production, so the 'stop gap' rubber suspension was used.
The development was designated the ADO 15... ADO being the Austin Drawing Office at Longbridge, Birmingham, the head office of the British Motor Corporation, universally known to its workforce until closure in 2005 as 'The Austin'...
Austin A35 saloon production ceased on 26 august 1959... Mini production commenced the same month on the same production lines...
Plus the minor has an engine bay wide enough for a rover v8.
@@joejoejoejoejoejoe4391 Yep, i remember some guy used to hill climb a V8 Minor at Prescott years ago.
@Retired Bore An interesting consequence of the increased width was that, on the early ones, the bumpers had to be cut in half and an extra section added in the middle to join them up.
One of Aussie's greatest race drivers started his career with an A30 but fitted a V8 Peter Brock! King of the Mount!
It was a 179 6cyl from a HD.
This just popped up on my feed. I have no idea why. Fascinating. My aunt's family had an A35 in the 1960s. Wonderful little car. My family had a Triumph Mayflower and then an A40. Our two families would trundle off to the seaside in North Wales (about 40 miles away) and get there in about 50 minutes. No problem: without the cars we would have had to catch the bus. Getting the car industry going again after WW2 was not trivial as most of the car factories had been converted to making army trucks, tanks and parts of aircraft. These sort of cars were exactly what was needed. Thanks for the video.
For us Brits, who grew up in the 50s and 60s, this car is just normal. In the UK we could never understand why you guys in the US built such enormous, gas-guzzling monsters... Great review. For more fun with small European classic cars I recommend the following You Tube channels:
* I Drive A Classic
* HubNut
* Furious Driving
* Twin Cam
* Alex's Assets
* JayEmm On Cars
The racing driver James Hunt used to use the van version of this car as his daily driver. He reckoned that with a tiny engine, non-servo brakes and crossply tyres, you had to use every ounce of the performance and handling just to stay with the traffic, which was the ultimate test of driving skill.
Australian touring car race driver, Peter Brock, started out racing an A30. He had 102 wins from 112 starts in his much modified Austin A30.
James Hunt - what a lad'
I'm a Brit and went to school with a couple of American kids whose father was working here in the UK back in about 1972. They were here temporarily renting a house and they bought one of these to drive around in while they were here. Even in 1972 it was ancient, and considered tiny even by UK standards, but it was cute. I remember those kids (from Roseville, CA) telling us all about huge American cars.
My dad had one of these; the two door version. It also had flag type turning indicators, not the flashing type shown in this video. As a family we travelled all over the UK in it. Engaging first gear ( no syncromesh) was always a bit of an art. Later, I owned the van version. Happy days!
I have just purchased a 1955 Austin A30 and am collecting it next weekend. Thank you for your lovely positive video, it has made me even more excited 😊
I have one of these, AS3. They are easily modified to make them better to drive. Mini, Sprite, Midgit parts can be used. Mine has a 998 engine with Cooper S carbs and cam, performance exhaust, Sprite gears and rear axle, bigger and full hydraulic brakes, lower suspension and wide tyres. Drives really well.
I did the same, all MGB GT engine and running gear
@@clivehorridge wow, that must be some conversion!
My father had one of those back in the early 1950’s. Brings back memories of country drives along narrow, winding lanes with high stone walks on either side. Then later in the early 1960’s at a boarding school I attended, one of the staff had one. One night a bunch of around 20 students came across it parked in a narrow alcove. They picked it up and turned it 90 degrees, so there was maybe 2 feet between the walls and the front and rear of the car. Somehow, he got it out. Nothing was ever mentioned officially about that.😁 Happy memories.
@Paul Kinley We rigged a ramp and pushed our history teacher's mini onto the school stage behind the curtains, then at assembly as the headmaster was greeting the new boys, the curtains opened and there was sir's bright yellow mini with a big pink bow tied around it. Again there were no repercussions, just a remark to the effect that the boys who'd done it would be expected to pay for any damage to school or car, but we were very careful.
In 1968 bought my A30 for £6 on her way to the scrap yard to use as grass track car but my van was t-boned and she became my road car..I love driving her and have done over 1/2 million miles in her. mods are 1100 engine higher diff and disc brakes and full hydraulic brakes used as everyday car and towed a landyacht on a trailer alround the country ..Would not change her for the world. Fantastic fun
I had a 1953 A30 as my first car in 1969. It was bought jointly with my girlfriend (now wife), and we adored it. It had no synchomesh on first gear, but as long as the car was stationary, you just pressed the clutch down, went into 2nd then across to first with no 'crunch'. I 'broke' the original engine, but it limped back to my girlfriend's house. Her brother and I went down to the local scrapyard, bought a 948cc engine from a crashed Morris Minor - and we we mobile again the same evening!
My dad's first car was an A35. It sat gathering dust in the garage and i remember playing inside it as a kid. Unfortunately he sold it eventually, but it went to someone who planned to restore it so it's hopefully still on the road somewhere.
. . . we had an A-30 as a second car when I was a kid . . . loved it to pieces . . . our family of four drove it one summer from our central Alberta home across the Rockies to Vancouver . . . what a trip, and what a thrill climbing some of those passes . . . Dad had to get out once to give it a push to get it going up a steep grade after we had stopped to let a grader finish his work . . . our interior leather was yellow, but exactly like your blue interior . . . and there was a cigarette lighter in the back of the front seat! . . .
My was an ex RSM RE and was recalled in 1936/7 to be a Civilian Garrison Engineer for Aldershot Garrison (Southern Command) he was allocated the parent of this, the Austin 7 (a van version in which he installed fold away bench seats) . He kept it when the both retired from service in 1945.
The Austin 7 was truly a world car from 1923 it was built in UK, Germany (BMW Dixi), France, Japan (Datsun) and North America.
It's successor was the Austin 8 which was the ubiquitous Wartime Austin "Tilly" (Utility).
Peter Brock 9 times Bathurst winner, started his racing career in a slightly modified Austin A30, here in OZ.
When I was in high school a teacher had a A30. We used to pick
it up, put it between 2 posts, or carry it up steps to a raised area
at the back of the schoolyard.
The teacher was a good bloke and saw the funny side of it.
We always extracted it from where ever we placed it.
I'd have just caned the lot of you , problem solved. :-)
@@reverendbarker650 Bloody hell, Reverend, it bloody HURT!!
My parents had one those when I was born (1958) they then moved up to a Morris Minor Travellor ( station wagon), happy days.
My dad had one when I was little - it's the first car I remember. He upgraded to an Austin Cambridge which I can still remember the smell of to this day - it was the cause of much travel-sickness in my early years!!
Known as a Countryman in the UK
I had a morris traveller and went to visit my sister in Scotland with my wife and young baby. We managed to get a full sized pram in the back. The weekend before we left my gearbox seized so my friend and I yanked the engine and gearbox out in the street on the Saturday morning. He went and got a second hand box in his frog eyed sprite and I took the head off and did a decoke. It was all back in by Sunday teatime. Off we set Monday morning, it ran like a sewing machine for years afterwards.
My grandad had one of these. We went to the coast a million times for a holiday. Thank you, this brings back many loving memories.
Hi, it's great to see this. I'm a Mini owner but I love anything with an A-Series under the hood. First, you're correct. There's no synchromesh on first gear. Minis also didn't have synchro on first till about 1968. I think this A-30 might have the wrong door handles on it because as far as I know the lock should be on the driver's side. That's how early Minis were, anyway. And finally, you should look up racing A-30's on RUclips to see the crazy antics they get up to with these little things in England.
On an 997cc skim 0.2mm off the head ( assuming it hasn't been done already ). Get MG carb & manifold and get a 3into1 exhaust. Gives a wee bit more power, but also more torque so it can move quicker ( by it's standard ).
My father had a well modified one back in the late 70's early 80's. I think that the disc brakes from something like a Triumph Frogeye Sprite fit easily .
The door lock on left hand steering export cars was an optional extra that very few buyers signed up for...
@@robertwillis4061 or just attempt to find a 970cc Mini Cooper S
The lack of syncro on 1st was not a problem. Generally, you changed into 1st when stationary.
No synco on 1st & reverse, you quickly learned the smart way to stop the gears crunching at standstill was to pop it in 2nd then straight across into 1st and for reverse, into 3rd or 4th and then into reverse to stop the layshaft turning, otherwise edges of the gears would get chipped after time and it would 'jump out of gear'. Enjoyed the blast from the past video, thanks for posting.
My first car was an A30, which I bought for £50 in 1967. For what it was it was actually pretty good, and served me well over several thousand miles. I still remember its registration plate: TLY 206.
A one time girl friend drove one of these. She drove everywhere in it. One evening as the mood took us over, she quickly found a place to park up and get romantic. Now I'm a six footer and sensitive to the room I need to be comfortable. My friend was around 5'.6". Anyhoo with a sense of purpose, we over came the limitations of the small cars interior - so that was nice.
My Aunty had one.
She lived in Timaru.
Had it for years and travelled all over the South Island.
When she got older she sold it to my cousin.
He had it for years and then sold it to his brother.
They kept it very well maintained and heaps of family learnt to drive in it.
We loved that little car.
We called it "Puddles".
(Short for "puddle jumper".)
I'm from the uk. Back in 1969 whilst at college three of us purchased an A 35 van for £30! This was 9 years old at the time and I went all over the UK with no trouble.
Later on had two saloons which were daily drivers, again without trouble apart from rust.
That was my girlfreinds car. I'm very glad it went to a good home. Keep up the good work guys!
Let me know when your interested in some more American drivability! 😁
Same here. She drove about 100 miles to college each week in 1966.
Great little car. As a 17yr old I had a 1955 4 door. Blue with tan interior. I could easily get 48mpg, & she'd go "off the clock"(70mph) good heater, & lights (for the time) half a pint of oil between changes. I think she's still extant. (NCJ 192) The A35 had a closer ratio gearbox, & a nice short lever, again a first class little car, had several. Thanks for video. Nice memories
I am glad you enjoyed driving the Austin A30 on the day they were some of the best cars for families. I started my apprenticeship motor mechanic in New Zealand in 1963 and worked on these Austins, Morris. My first car was a 1935 Austin 7 which was a lot of fun I also owned an Austin A40 same type of shape as the A30 but much bigger..
Awesome car. I think that a trip to Brandon's house to see his collection of vehicles would be fun.
The A series engine was originally designed as an axillary engine for a tank, hence the "A". It can be tuned to up to 200 hp with turbo charging, because of the Siamesed ports, they developed a "scatter pattern " camshaft. The Austin A35 is raced, you can even get glass fibre panels.
Are you sure on the auxiliary tank engine statement, I believe it was specifically made for the A30 and it's descendants.
@@retiredbore378 I think also the Coventry Climax engine was used as a fire engine pump that also morphed into the engine in the Hillman imp.
I used to take my mother's A30 for a spin around the block when I was a kid. My Mum was a school teacher, so when she came home she spent a few hours marking papers, or having a pot of tea. She was so absorbed in her world, she never noticed me starting her car for a jolly. Basically, I learnt to drive in it. Fairly tall for age 12-13, I recall a car full of young lads laughing as we took it for various journeys in the neighbourhood. No synchromesh in 1st, but I learnt to drive this wee fella years before I was old enough for my licence test. We could do that sort of thing in New Zealand, back in the day.
That car and many like it (British) were all over the place in AUS back in the 50s-60s. Austin, Morris, Wolsley and even Ford got in on the act with small cars like the Prefect. I learnt to drive in such cars from the pre-mini era :)
Dual brake systems on a car this old - impressive! Thanks for a great presentation!
If you look at British car production, you will see where this Austin A30/35 fits in. They were very popular and some have been preserved. The van version was also very popular, used by many business'. My dad had one in about '68. I remember him getting me to help him work on it. Always thought this car, as well as many others, looked dated. We also had a driving manual, which indicates , when turning right - the arm is extended right, when turning left - right arm extended moving your hand in a circular motion, when slowing down - right arm extended and hand waved up and down.
These hand signals were part of the driving test for many years afterwards in the UK ... even when all cars had proper indicators.
Those arm movements were still used in the driving test when i took mine in 1975.
There's a van version still driving around our town in Essex, it belongs to a guy doing online deliveries.
In Australia when I did my driving licence test the hand signals were similar except the left turn was with the forearm and hand pointing up. We drive on the left side of the road as in the UK. Best to use hand signals in the daytime as those semaphore signals weren’t very visible in the daytime.
In the 1930s "You have been Warned" was a classic humorous book on motoring (at the time there was 1 car to every 33 people!). They had alternative meanings for the hand signals. I am going to Slow down or Stop / I am going to shake the Ash off my Cigarette. I am going to turn Left (rotating) / My Arm's got pins and needles! About 6 different ones for turning right. All spoofs of the various signals from the Highway Code including for horse-drawn vehicles, lorries, bicycles and pedestrians. In the pedal cycles section there was a completely blank page captioned, "I am going to appear Suddenly from Nowhere, and dash Straight across the road with a Basket of Groceries on my Handle-Bars." Some things don't change.
We knew it as the "Baby" Austin. At school in the 60s our maths master had one and he used to park it in the playground. One day a few of us lifted it bodily (they were so light) and carefully placed it in the 90degree angle between the playground walls making it impossible to simply drive away. I blush now at the pranks we played but he, our maths master, was a great sport and we loved him dearly. Happy days!
We did something similar to a friend's tiny Fiat 500 years ago at University in the 70s. Poor lan!
My Father had an A35 van for his Bakery business around1958 complete with a slide in/out rack for wooden bakery good trays. Once pulled out it had a bunch of cushions thrown in the back for us kids to roll around in as we drove along. The engine exhaust sound was quite unique and I could tell from 1/4 mile away when my Dad's little can was coming down the road. Sweet memories of my childhood.
My closest friend in UK had one of these for his first car at 17, but the estate version(I think you call it a shooting brake) with a folding rear seat, or the passion wagon conversion! We were quite a hit with ladies in the swinging sixties London with this little 'Austin Acorn' as it was affectionately called.
He is now a multi millionaire, and lives in a huge traditional English Oak beamed house in Santa Barbara. So you could say, 'from a little Acorn, a mighty oak tree grew'.
This was my first car, bought in 1967 for £5. I was the second owner. My brother and I put in an A35 prop-shaft and a Morris 1000 gold seal engine. This allowed the car to travel up to 90 MPH, which was very fast for this model. I travelled all over Scotland in this car over a period of two years. The registration number was DYJ 882 and I gave the car to my younger brother when I bought a bigger car.
DYJ 882 is still on the DVLA MOT Check website, complete with the 1098cc engine you and your your brother fitted. I shouldn't think the car exists now, as the tax was last due on the 1st October 1982. The last V5C logbook was issued in November 1983. Maybe it's parked in a nice dry barn somewhere! They were great little cars.
In the 60s I had a friend who was a rally driver. He used to practice in an A35. He said at speeds of 40/50 on twisty country roads was like driving a rally car at much higher speeds as such good practice😅
My Dad bought a secondhand one in Lagos, Nigeria in about 1959. He was in the British Army We used to go on outings to the wild and jungle areas and visit farms to pick up fresh food up country, and pass by traditional villages. My sister and I were around 8 or 9 years old. Later with our new baby sister in her carry cot between us in the back seat. Dad was teaching Mum to drive sometimes. Happy hot days. Picnics. Boiled sweets. A wet flannel in a bag to wipe your face.
This was the first car we had in my family early 1960s. I have photos of us by it on holiday where we did epic 200 mile trips. A long way in those days
I am surprised to say I don't remember ever seeing one of these Austins. I grew up in Los Angeles CA in the 60s and 70s, saw so many different cars. I saw Morris Minors, Morgans, Minis, MG-TDs, Alfa Romeos, Fiat 500s etc, Ford Model As, all 1950s American cars, WWII Jeeps. I had my own Triumph TR4.
the bigger A40 Devon was imported into the States and was quite popular, it had the 1500 B-Series engine. I think the A30/35 may have been exported to Canada.
Saw a Morris Minor in Washington DC in 2002
Hi I really loved your video about the Austin A30. It brought Back memories of Over 60 years ago as my Grandad owned an Austin A35. You are entirely right about the quirky gear box with a non-synchro low gear. This was no problem to my Grandad as he was used to driving vehicles which had no synchro mesh on any of the gears as he had been taught to drive using the double de-clutch method. However it was a bit of a problem to me when he gave me a few driving lessons in his A40 (same gear arrangement) when I was eighteen. Took a bit of getting used to after driving modern cars I can tell you! Anyway thank you for bringing back those happy memories and best wishes Gordon. UK. (70 years young)
My father had the van version with rear seat conversion, so work all week as mobile mechanic then family car at weekends and camping holidays, same engine as the Mini just not transverse was amazing how much it could haul mum, dad sister and myself and a washing machine up Porlock Hill back to Watford LOL.
UP Porlock Hill? Were you going the long way round to Watford, just for the fun of it? 😄
I had a Hillman Imp with a trailer tent behind going up Porlock Hill. Made it grunt a bit. Going back to High Wycombe.
@@stephenrandall3551 why would you be going UP Porlock Hill on the way to High Wycombe?
And of course, the van version featured in Wallace & Gromit. 😄
@@CaseyJonesNumber1 was going home from a camping holiday.
Had a 1956 model as a first car at seventeen, 803 cc’s of pure power, loved it, even though I spent many hours repairing it so I could get to work the next day
"...803cc of pure power.. " stop it ☺️🇳🇿
Glad you liked the A30.
Remember back then, in the post-war years, us Brits were still under food and fuel rationing. A car was a huge luxury item. Looking back at cars of the '50's our, as you say "weird" little Austins and Morrises are just as funny as your enormous wobbly 7.5litre Cadillacs , Studebakers, "Pone-tee-yaks" with all the chrome, whitewall tyres and pointy tailfins.
Cars back then had personalities, know what I mean? They were also death-traps compared to what we drive now. But, back then, a little car like this would have been a pride and joy to it's owner. A little car on an eccentric but proud little Island group, licking it's wounds after a war, trying to be positive, grateful to you Yanks, Your huge sacrifice in lives and material support.
So, all the best, mate.
Nick
The lack of door closing is caused by a lack of maintenance. The hinges use roll pins and without grease they wear out making the door drop and thus difficult to close. Replace the pins (less than $1) grease them and bingo - doors fixed.
What you have to remember is British roads are narrow, corners tight and surfaces rough. Post war Britain was growing fast and starting to boom. Materials were in short supply and what you have is a car that's almost affordable, comfortable and gets you from A to B in a pleasant way.
I'd far rather have one of those than a MK1 Mini.
Glad you demonstrated the 'semaphore' trafficators/indicators. Cool that you showed the positives and fun aspects of it rather than panning it. My mum had a black one of these as her first car in the 60s.
Well, they are clearly better turn indicators than simple blinking lights. But they have to be much more expensive since they have lots more parts, some of them moving.
@@soaringvulture my mate had a Y type MG with these. The one on the drivers side always got stuck so each time he turned right (in Australia, the drivers side) he would have to bang on the inside of the car between the side windows to free it up. It sometimes needed a few whacks. Where blinking lights are better is that you can see them from any angle whether approaching or following the car signalling. Those trafficators could only be seen if you had a clear view along the side of the car.
Fantastic to see one in the USA. I had one for years and drove all over England in it. I did put disc brakes off an M G midget on it but otherwise kept it pretty original. My ex wife still has one as her daily driver. 😊
i learned how to drive in one of these cars in 1970 it had a crash gearbox and indicator arms that came out of the sides of the car, i used to love it.
My Mum’s first car was an A35 she had from her younger brother - like the A30 but with a slightly better engine, indicators instead of semaphore arms and a bigger rear screen.
And this one had “Just Married” on the boot lid which some wag had written in shaving foam at my uncle’s wedding, shortly before he gave the car to my mum. The shaving foam ate into the paint while the car was parked during the honeymoon, and was only cleaned off 2 weeks later. Whenever it rained after that, you could see the writing in the paint…
Memories of seeing the road through the holes in the floor, and joking about the “lace edging”.
The horsepower was rated as 30, hence the A-30 designation. I have owned three A-seiries, in the A-40 ( 1949 and 1951 and a 1955 ). The different body styles were further designated as Devon and \Somerset...they made a six cylinder verion as well, the A-90. They were all very cool.
The MG Midget was basically an A30/35 with a different body.
I’m pretty sure Richard Pape in ‘Cape Hot to Cape Cold’ described doing 100mph routinely in an A90? He was a pretty tough type, a notorious piss artist, scrapper, all round tough guy, and wrote very interesting books. He was a navigator in the RAF and escaped German captivity after being shot down and tortured. Not known for political correctness in his writings either.
@@ThreenaddiesRexMegistus I never rode in the A90, but recall them very clearly. One would be priceless today.
In 1978 I used to work for an oil industry offshore survey company in London . The company "hippy" who worked in the drawing office had one; it suited his "aura" and he gave me lifts home in it. It had no problems in the congested traffic of the time. A traffic jam brings down the mightiest super-car down to the lowest common denominator.
@@retiredbore378 Your comment reminds me of the George Best quote: " I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered". ps He ended up in Surbiton (remember "The Good Life"?), where I used to live before moving to Qld. When I learned that it was one of those WTF moments.
In the early seventies in Australia these cars were really cheap. Before my mates and I were old enough to drive on the road we would buy them for $25 (sometimes we would even get them for free if people just wanted to get rid of them) and (my dad would) take them to our farm where we would hoon around in them until they died and then go and get another one (there were about eight dead A30s dotted around the farm). We had other cars too like Woolsleys and a rover 90, Humber Supersnipe and a really nice Vauxhall Cresta with a woodgrain dash (I think we paid $75 for that) oh a couple of great fiat 1100s, EK and FB Holdens. I wish I still had them now.
I know this sounds like a terrible story but we were teenagers. When we sold the farm we gave away or sold all the cars.
I used to ‘Bomb around’ in the van version in my earlier days……….great days when life (looking back), despite the lack of luxury folk expect nowadays was calmer, less selfish, trusting,and respectful compared to the much, much more ‘I expect everything ‘ society we live in now!
The reason for the manuals with the car is that you were expected to do your own repairs and servicing back then. My first car was a 1947 Austin 8, the A30/A35 was a luxury car then, but I did love my old Austin 8.
I have an Austin 8. My hubby and I went to Australia in it!
Are you sure it was 1947? Mine is 1939.
@@Lily-Bravo That was what I was told when I bought it, for the princely sum of £5 in 1961. It even had a radio, a valve radio with a vibrator pack, and a 6 volt battery system, positive ground. The car was a year older than I. 😉
You could just about sit Inside a Morris 1000 engine space...my 2004 Honda barely allows an arm in sideways.
I almost bought a nice engineless A30. My plan was to put a 302 Ford and T5 and narrowed 8.8" rear end like I had in my Ranger but with something that doesn't look like a free moving service. I went and looked at the car but noticed the engine bay is maybe a foot long and the V8 would require firewall and seats moved way back and the tiny wheelwells would need some major work to put the sorts of tires i'd want. It was way too nice to chop up like that so I ended up with a larger and very decrepit Consul Capri.
I had a Austen-40 back in the early '60s. It was a fun little car but a bear finding parts. It looks like your car can be started with a crank. I dont remember if mine did, but check your bumper. I had an old Renault that had a bumper like yours and finding a electric starter for it was even harder for the Austin. Thanks for the video, it reminds me of fun times!
The A30 was my first car, I paid £2 for it and kept it for 5 years before giving it to a friend. I had great fun in it, it never let me down. It was ridiculously easy to maintain, one time I was in Cornwall and the heater hose burst, I stopped at the first church I saw, went inside, got a candle and whittled it down, stuck it in the burst hose and drove it over 300 miles to get home with no problems
I love seeing all these unique cars that Brandon brings for us to check out. Thanks guys
Gear lever is the wrong shape it came up around four inch's then just sloped towards the handbrake it stopped right above it. My fathers was in Old English white and he added rear side windows, they did a two door that used the van front doors as slightly longer, front signals once added to the front fender were amber as per the rear to replace the semaphore traffircaters, my SXS is wider than these, my father added an overdrive a second lever that was used in every gear so a bit like a Semi box you start in first then moved the second lever to first overdrive then second and second overdrive etc even had overdrive in reverse, the box was out of a 1966 Ford Anglia 105E, my father and his brother were very good at innovation also fitted a Shorrocks Supercharger that later ended up on a Ford X-valve engine in a Slingshot Allan Allard chassis and held the D/D class D/D6 record right up to the reforming the class's in the eighties.
I would never describe the A30 or A 35 as weird; more like charming. My dad had two A35 vans but they had rear seats and windows fitted. His first was grey and he did over 450k miles in it and it never missed a beat. He carried out all his own servicing too. His next one was green and he sold it for just £1000 to the president of the A35 0wners club who travelled all the way from Cornwall to North Yorkshire to collect it and in reality it was worth a lot more as it had only covered about 70k miles which is insanely low milege for an early 1960's car! I look back on these cars with great affection as they were from an era when cars had their own unique personality unlike the generic crap that gets churned out today. Thanks for sharing this video, it brought back loads of happy memories.
The baby Austin was my first car which had an 1100cc gold seal engine in it. The registration plate started with HMS, loved it.
My first car, a '63 Austin Mini Seven did not have synchro on first. You got used to slipping it in to gear just before you came to a stop, or starting the engine in gear with the clutch pressed.
My first car, a 1964 Plymouth Valiant, didn't have synchro on first either. I didn't have to do anything strange to put it in first gear at a stop. I just put down the clutch and moved the shift lever. The only time it had a problem was shifting into first from second while moving. And I hardly ever did that. So I'm not clear about the problem that you had to work around.
@@soaringvulture Non synchro first was very common and was still in limited practice long after many thought it extinct. With non synchro first you are supposed to come to a complete stop before engaging first again.The reason many minis suffered like the guy above mentioned was either because people don't know how to double declutch or down to the poor design of the transverse A series clutch actuation which generally resulted in a slight drag even with the clutch pedal fully depressed.
@@notpoliticallycorrect1303 Oh, that makes sense. The gears were still turning even though you had the clutch in in neutral.
I think you have a very early AS3 variant. They vibrate considerably more than the later ones. You can tell what speed you are doing by which item is vibrating and at what pitch. Cool to see one. I grew up with them when I was a kid in the 90s as my dad used to work on them as a classic car mechanic. My mum used to daily an A35 when I was young (with no seatbelts which was super cool as a kid). Such great memories
Yes, only the very early cars had the boot (trunk) hinges inside, later cars had exposed chrome hinges.