What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[gezparton]

WHO SAID THAT !

[dickie65]

I am about to go into the garage and play with a Nippy Engine kit of parts.

[sparkeysprite]

Lovely photographs of the little boat tail (what’s going on with those seats?) and the box saloon, great to see them both out and about...I was thinking of taking the box across country to Heathrow, but all the road closures for HS2 and the East West railway are a complete nightmare, so took tg3 modern do2n the M40!

I forget how many motors I’ve pulled apart that look like yours Hedd, nothing a good blasting and some creative metalwork can’t fix...

Hi Ivor, I don't know what's going on with the seats - they were in it when I got it and they look like other 7 seats I've seen (but I've not seen another boat tail like mine..)  I think that perhaps they look a bit "prominent" because the car doesn't have a hood (at present) and the hood would normally be folded behind them, hiding them from view..?

[Ivor Hawkins]

Hi Sparkey, ah, you could be right, most have the hood folded down, which would hide the top of the seats, it looked like you had Austin 12 seats in there!

[David Stepney]

I took the Seven over the mountains to feed the horses and visit a friend whom I had not seen since lockdown who  lives just outside Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, a round trip of about 40miles, taking me through Llangynog and Penybont Fawr.


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The Seven in Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant Village

[Malcolm Parker]

Malcolm, very nice. When I restored by RL I wanted to paint it black. I had red wheels in stock. I wanted black over black, red wheels and trim. I was persuaded out of it, and went for a dove grey body. No regrets. But your car looks stunning. 

Noting the blue coachline, father used to have the 1931 poverty model (and thus side valve) Singer 10 saloon. Original finish for the rolling chassis was a very deep blue. almost a royal blue. I have always thought a royal blue chassis, with black coachwork would be very smart, with option of blue or black wheels. 

Thanks for the kind comments, Hedd.  My car was originally dark blue and when I restored it in 1999 I decided on all black.  Andy Hastings, who did the bodywork recoiled in horror.  He regarded black as the most difficult colour, due to the way it reflects the light.  If you look at the rear body panels either side of the rear window, you can still see that they are slightly indented where the car has been pushed over the years.
When I got the car, the trim was a beige woolen material.  It left the factory with cloth trim but this had been replaced. From the word go I wanted it to have moquette upholstery which was woven for me by Holdsworth's in Halifax, at one time the leading supplier of moquette in the world.   The same pattern moquette was subsequently used when the works twin-cam was restored.   My car doesn't share any other twin-cam parts!
I will be driving the RL down to Moreton in Marsh in July.  I will shortly be fitting the engine and gearbox that are currently in the Ulster rep.  I am hoping that the extra torque will suit the 'Andes' gear ratios and make the car even more enjoyable to drive.

[Hedd_Jones]

Malcolm

My own RL body must have suffered a rear quarter collision at some point, the body is twisted, and the dints were seemingly knocked out with a ball pein hammer. Consequently there is just a little filler in the rear end! Grey was probably a better choice for the reasons you state.

I enjoy driving my RL most out of the 3 cars here. I prefer the 3 speed box to the 4 speed box of the later car, and the ball change lever is infinitely better than the stumpy gate change lever on the chummy. The brakes are better too being coupled. I've also had it the longest so I guess i've got bias.

Do you know where in Shropshire your car was new to?

[Duncan Grimmond]

Speaking of black paint Mervin Hoyle was in Ripon market square today doing one of his regular Marie Curie charity collections and the black on his wings is deep enough to dive into!

[Malcolm Parker]

               
Hedd

My car UX 8191 was registered on 1st March 1931 to a Mr Alfred Kay of 3, Atcham, Shrewsbury.   It then spent several years in Whitchurch before being sold in 1974 to a chap in Shavington, Crewe who did little with the car except dismantle it and strip the paint of the bonnet until it came my way in 1998.
I was put onto the car by a joiner friend in Thirsk who was pally with a lad who worked as a caretaker at Breckenborough Hall, a stately home 4 miles west of Thirsk.  The car belonged to this lads Father in law.  As usual when I was alerted to the car, I guessed it might be an Austin A30 or something, but a few days later my joiner pal came into my office with a photocopy of the log book and a photograph, probably taken in the late 50's or early 60's.  I was confident buying the car 'unseen' but many people would have scrapped the body and built an Ulsteroid on the chassis and running gear.  When purchased it had a later 3 brg engine and 4 speed box fitted and the tunnel and bulkhead had been butchered accordingly.  Also the two front seats had been replaced by a large bench seat, a sort of homemade sofa that weighed a ton.
On getting the car back home to Boltby, Whilst still on the drive I bolted the carburettor which was in the back of the car back on, filled the float chamber with petrol and connected a battery to the coil.  On the first turn of the handle the engine burst into life, the fan nearly taking my nose end off.   The engine cannot have run since 1974 at least, some 25 years previously.
Like you, I enjoy the RL more than any other Austin 7 I have ever owned.   It has always had a mildly tuned engine which helps with the hills.   Below are some photos of the car when I got it and during the restoration.  The photos are scans so the colours are a bit weird.
I later found out that Breckenborough Hall was the home of Sir Francis Samuelson, a well known Austin 7 racing driver.

[Hedd_Jones]

Having worked for many years in Shrewsbury, lived in Whitchurch, and Shavington is not so far from where I currently live (7 or 8 miles away), its very much a local car to the area here. I'm not local to here however, I'm welsh.

My RL suffered the fate yours may have, in that the bodywork was removed from the running gear, actually to build a tourer. As the chassis no plate was still on the body when we bought it, I can see it is now an AF tourer and has lost its original registration number.

We got the body, wings/doors bonnet etc from an advert in the Exchange and Mart.

We had (and I still have) a significant number of Seven spares, but did not have any SWB coupled chassis (they have always been valuable things to sell)

Father was a prolific finder of stuff, and dealt a lot in vintage car spares, some of which also came from the scrap (he was a scrap metal dealer as well as a local authority engineer). He knew of the remains of a SWB 7 box saloon and a 10 saloon in a wood on a farm locally, the bodies were so bad that they had practically disintegrated and there were no mechanical components, hence he had never bothered with them before.

Luckily for us the 7 was an RL with a chassis (and steering box), and even better the farmer still had the log book for it. Turns out this chassis was 18 chassis numbers from the chassis my body had been fitted to.

Merging the two, running gear components out of the spares shed, an engine from Mick Kirkland and bingo I had a 'car'. The hardest thing to find was the fuel tank. A screw on badge type cowl was also a challenge. And I had to buy a set of closed centre wheels.

Having built it up from bits, it is probably not amazingly 'year correct', but over time I have made it more accurate. I see yours has the same throttle shaft as the RP has for example, mine is a chummy one I bent to make it work better.

The 10 chassis was FUBAR, and much of it was left there, but the 'car' did yield 4 nice bakerlight door catch covers. In the days before 3d printing, and when people were still restoring vintage cars these sold for more money than we paid for the remains of the 2 cars!.