I wonder whether he gets any replies

[Mike Costigan]

I wonder how much the tooling was in the day when Austin produced this model?

I realise this does not cover tooling for mass production, but the cost of building the three prototypes was £1,672. 19 shillings, or approximately ten times the retail value of the production car.

[Duncan Grimmond]

A variation on the bike, guitar theme

[Rpm]

Interesting !!

[Tony Griffiths]

I wonder how much the tooling was in the day when Austin produced this model?

I realise this does not cover tooling for mass production, but the cost of building the three prototypes was £1,672. 19 shillings, or approximately ten times the retail value of the production car.

Roughly £90,000 today. I suppose much of this would have been done in-house - pattern making and casting castings included if the foundry and forge were operating by 1922.

[Mike Costigan]

Yes, pretty much everything was done in-house. Longbridge had foundry and forge facilities from the beginning, this was the big difference between the Austin and Morris method of production: Austin tried to get everything done in-house, whilst Morris subcontracted as much as possible. Morris, of course, was the big winner, if only in cash flow; most of his income was received before any expenses were paid.

[Tony Griffiths]

Yes, pretty much everything was done in-house. Longbridge had foundry and forge facilities from the beginning, this was the big difference between the Austin and Morris method of production: Austin tried to get everything done in-house, whilst Morris subcontracted as much as possible. Morris, of course, was the big winner, if only in cash flow; most of his income was received before any expenses were paid.

In which case, as an alliterative example, he should have been called "Morris the Middle Man" with Mr Austin as "Austin the Authentic".

[Phil Kingdom]

Have we all missed something in the Austin world? Are prices affected by the Covid 19 virus or are people just going insane?
https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1215835

[Ian Williams]

Same price as the 24 chummy above it, even though the chummy is not a particularly authentic one its a much better prospect!

[Chris Garner]

Yes, pretty much everything was done in-house. Longbridge had foundry and forge facilities from the beginning, this was the big difference between the Austin and Morris method of production: Austin tried to get everything done in-house, whilst Morris subcontracted as much as possible. Morris, of course, was the big winner, if only in cash flow; most of his income was received before any expenses were paid.

Whilst what Mike says is correct, the initial three prototypes were required to be built as soon as possible and thus items were bought out. eg: Serck for the radiator, Midland Motor Cylinder Company for the block, Berry for springs etc. Austin's had never produced wire wheels so Stanley Edge poached a wire builder from the Royal Enfield factory in Redditch who proceeded to build them " like a conjuror ". Sterling metals provided the aluminium for the bodies, Watford's for the magneto and Zenith, the carburettor.

[Duncan Grimmond]

You could buy my finished special for the price of that pile of bits!