Slowly getting there with my car and hope to be on the road properly soon, just in time for winter ?
However mine has the common droopy window issue with the drivers side disappearing into the door at the slightest opportunity.
I think I came across a story somewhere that Morris Minor 1000 regulators can be fitted but I cannot find this again for the life of me, maybe I imagined it!
Another suggestion was loads of rubber bands - not my preferred solution.
So how have you all gone about getting your windows to stay up!
Posted by: Stuart Joseph - 11-10-2026, 07:21 PM - Forum: Sales
- No Replies
I have available a lighting set for a Nippy 1936 on. It comprises a pair of L131/133 refurbished headlamps replated with dipping projector bulbs. A pair of nos Lucas LD109 sidelights and a nos ST38 pork pie lamp.
Cost is £550 to include p+p to UK.
An interesting interview with the owner of a very low-mileage 1932 American Austin Bantam - and its history. It's the first of several, featuring other unusual models. Well worth a look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRK0sLXJEz8
I'm sure we all know the story, but here it is anyway: [b]Let's drive: François Lecot and the Rosengart that would not stop.[/b]
Lucien Rosengart, whose small cars began as licence-built copies of the Austin Seven, had good reason to regard reliability as a powerful selling point. To test this idea, one François Lecot was engaged to undertake a convincing demonstration by driving a Rosengart for 100,000 kilometres—about 62,137 miles—in little more than three months. The achievement helped establish Rosengart’s early reputation, although accounts sometimes confuse the original undertaking with its subsequent repeat.
Lecot was already an experienced motorist with a background in the motor trade who, with his wife, had taken over an inn at Rochetaillée-sur-Saône, near Lyon. Born on 5 April 1878, he was 52 when he began his first Rosengart marathon. He was not inexperienced in this sort of work, having warmed up by driving a Ford Model A on repeated journeys over the Alpine passes for a fortnight in 1929.
The first Rosengart trial began on 10 August 1930 and ended on 29 November 1930[b]. [/b]Driving a 5CV Rosengart LR2[b],[/b] Lecot covered the 100,000 kilometres in 111 days, averaging about 900 kilometres—559 miles—per day. His route ran from Lyon through Bourg-en-Bresse to Dijon, returning via Chalon-sur-Saône and Mâcon. This was sustained main-road work, repeated day after day, rather than a demonstration by circling a racing circuit. The Lyon municipal library’s historical account identifies the test’s objective as demonstrating the little car’s reliability.
Commercial support was part of the enterprise: a surviving Kervoline oil advertising poster commemorates Lecot’s 1930 achievement, and the same lubricant’s name is prominently painted across the bonnet in one of the accompanying photographs. The car also advertised Monoplaque batteries, carrying the words “ACCUS MONOPLAQUE”; [i]accus[/i] is short for [i]accumulateurs[/i], meaning, of course, storage batteries.
Had anyone expressed suspicions about this achievement? Perhaps they had, for to remove all doubts, Lecot repeated the exercise in 1932, this time with a Rosengart LR4 and under the supervision of the Automobile Club de France. The second trial covered the Paris–Lyon–Paris route and ran for 100,000 kilometres in 105 days. A contemporary report in the Polish motoring journal [i]Auto[/i], published in July 1932, confirms the distance, duration and route. Later histories give the start date as 7 March 1932, while a retrospective account gives 21 June as the finish; though a contemporary source is still needed to confirm this.
This trail was of considerable significance. Dividing the distance by 105 gives an average of about 952 kilometres, or 592 miles, per day[b]—[/b]roughly 600 miles a day for fifteen weeks. This is the same as driving from the centre of London to the centre of Newcastle on Tyne, then back again. Get out, clean up, have a meal, sleep and repeat, nonstop for 105 days. For a small car, this was an impressive demonstration of sustained endurance and usefulness; for its driver, how on earth did he stay awake?
While the mileage demonstrated endurance, it did not, by itself, prove that nothing needed adjusting, repairing or replacing. Without a full post-trial inspection and strip-down, maintenance records, and the Automobile Club’s officials’ reports, you can't verify claims such as “entirely trouble-free” or “without any mechanical attention”. One also wonders how carefully the factory prepared the car, and whether it was a representative production example or a particularly well-selected, painstakingly assembled one. I’d bet the house on the latter.
What can fairly be said, though, is that Lecot gave Rosengart a persuasive answer to anyone who dismissed a small car as suitable only for short journeys. The publicity accrued was deliberate, and the mileage was indeed substantial. A very close relative of the Austin Seven had made a strong case for the small car’s long-distance capabilities. Would it not be interesting if records of fuel, oil, and tyre consumption were available? Sadly, they cannot be found.
Attributions: https://www.linflux.com/lyon-et-region/67933/ [/url][url=https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/Content/878464/NDIGCZAS061151_1932_007.pdf]https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/Content/878464/NDIGCZAS061151_1932_007.pdf https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53254324f
Tony John's book Sporting Austin Sevens in Australia is expected to be available in mid November, and will be available via the Melbourne Austin Seven Club at mailorderparts@austin7club.org - price is expected to be A$99 (about £52) with postage to the UK at an additional A$20 with a limited print run that is unlikely to be increased. The Club is looking into options for a bulk UK mailing, but at the moment the best economy is for an order of two books with a shipping cost of A$25.
