1934 RP - an advertisement of its time

[Tony Griffiths]

The Light Car Magazine, 1934. Buy an Austin Seven - and enjoy days out in the countryside.

[Tony Press]

With dad in the passenger seat is this a hint at the (very) modern mother driving

[Bob Culver]

The car is drawn slightly down at the back as typically are with passenger. 
With the lady's dress I trust no one has recently greased the steering box. My father used to get irate in grey slacks. (white clthing has never been recommended in any car I have owned, past or present! The proportion of life not spent in work clothes is very small)
The lady looks concerned that the hoons arriving are likely in the modern (NZ) manner to commence wheelies in the unsealed car park.

[Tony Griffiths]

With the lady's dress I trust no one has recently greased the steering box. My father used to get irate in grey slacks. (white clthing has never been recommended in any car I have owned, past or present! The proportion of life not spent in work clothes is very small)

Quite right. In this month's VSCC Bulletin, Penelope Tubbs (wife of the well-known motoring journalist Bunny Tubbs) writes: My mother....also drove an Austin 7. She said it had the maddening habit of dropping oil from the steering column onto her knees, but only when she was wearing smart clothes.

[Bob Olive]

The inimitable Ken Cooke described this unfortunate happening - excess grease from the steering column top - as ‘dropping you know where’! Perhaps this explains why so many steering boxes were under-greased?

[Bob Culver]

The man is sitting in the passenger seat because he greased the steering box that morning.
I can remember from about age 4 my father getting annoyed when a blob landed on his best trousers (which as a tradesman he probably only had one pair of). All book maintenance schedules were applied and more. I suspect it the main reason later changed to heavy oil.
I can clearly remember standing in the car between my mother and the dashboard.
Our car had a tiny hole in the radiator cap (presumably as a boiling indicator). On occasional heavy braking a tiny jet of steaming rusty water would arch above roof level!