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+--- Thread: Update - Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Not Auction - More Pictures (/showthread.php?tid=1146)
RE: Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Parazine - 01-05-2018
My first Austin 7 in the mid 1970's was a very late Ruby, chassis number 290524, registered in January 1939, much later than this one. The car still exists and is still (I believe) the latest known saloon; there are later vans and possibly an Opal. The bodywork was standard mark 2 Ruby with a normal panel under the spare wheel, normal wing edges and normal scoop under the grille. It was original and tatty when I had it and had a normal amount of rust present everywhere. The late features were a plastic handbrake handle, Mazak radiator cap with a bar across it, slightly pressurised cooling system (water escape via a spring loaded valve), in addition to the steel sunshine roof, hidden hinge bonnet, rod brakes on the rear, metric wheel bearings and no registers on the wheels/drums. I owned the car for 5 years and did many miles in it.
I would suggest that the featured car has either been "customised" with P38 or a is a poor or misguided older restoration using the same material.
There were no modifications of this type to the body design by the factory.
RE: Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Colin Morgan - 01-05-2018
A quick check shows the good news that the car (with number) is presently taxed and on the road...
Colin
Hi
Thanks for the information on the youngest Ruby - suggests this car has been modified by an owner. However, there wasn't much sign of fibre-glass - must have been more a matter of cutting, fabricating and welding, though I didn't run a magnet along the long tail... Still wondering why so many small fiddly hardly-visible changes on one car.
Colin
RE: Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Nigel was in Brittany - 01-05-2018
Mike mine was / is ( FWE 442 ,now VXS 456) . I have a ledger entry from Sheffield archives showing about 50 Austin Sevens bearing FWE being registered on 31 /12/38 and 01/01/39
RE: Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Colin Morgan - 22-05-2021
There are good pictures here of the Ruby FWE 456, Ch No. 290307 showing various very late Ruby features. Note this is not a live auction.
https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/340-1938-austin-seven-ruby/?lot=50919&sd=1#
RE: Update - Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Not Auction - More Pictures - Nick Lettington - 22-05-2021
Is the blue object on the choke pull due to a recent over restoration, or were plastic pegs introduced for 1939?
20210522_120631.jpg (Size: 124.81 KB / Downloads: 218)
RE: Update - Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Not Auction - More Pictures - Tiger - 22-05-2021
Looks like the ignition and lighting switch upgrade.
Was this fitted to the late rubies?
Or a later add on?
RE: Update - Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Not Auction - More Pictures - Colin Morgan - 22-05-2021
It is in keeping with the 'Blue' theme throughout...
RE: Update - Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Not Auction - More Pictures - Parazine - 22-05-2021
(22-05-2021, 12:50 PM)Tiger Wrote: Looks like the ignition and lighting switch upgrade.
Was this fitted to the late rubies?
Or a later add on?
The ignition and lighting switch is a modern, south asian reproduction of the wrong type, intended for a car with a regulator. The original was probably a spade key type, 1-2-Side-Head (PLC2?) switch. My late Ruby had this replaced in the fifties with a FA keyed locking switch.
The ammeter is not original either.
As for the pan head self tappers.......
RE: Update - Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Not Auction - More Pictures - Robert Leigh - 22-05-2021
This thread reminds me of my first Ruby bought in 1963 in Cambridge for £5 if I remember rightly. It was registered FWE468 on 29th December 1938, which was 6 years to the day after the 1932 RP which preceded it. It seemed like a standard de luxe Ruby spec with steel sunroof and drip rails rather than gutters. I understand that it was one of 3 Rubies used as a Hire car by Marshalls (the Austin Distributor in Cambridge) during the war; another was FWE444 but I cannot recollect the other. Those cars had the standard body shape and square fronted running boards.
RE: Update - Very Late Ruby up for Auction - Not Auction - More Pictures - Colin Morgan - 22-05-2021
There doesn't seem to be anything strange about this car - so FWE 435 that has some odd features does not seem to be as it left the factory.
Having said that - is the apron below the cowl a different shape on the blue car - it looks a bit more horizontal - or is this just how it is fitted?