29 favor

[Vancevr]

i was reading in a Austin seven book (dont remember which one) and it said the 1929 seven tourer was the most popular can you tell me why?

[Bob Culver]

Popular new or with enthusiasts at some particular era?

[Ian Williams]

A 29 tourer is for many of us the perfect A7, it has enough refinement over the early cars without all the encumberments of the later cars. They were very popular when new, ideally suited to the market at which they were aimed, tough, reliable go anywhere and there were also few serious competitors.

[Bob Culver]

Relative sales new would be of interest if the club holds. Open cars generally had seriously fallen from favour by 1929. I guess many saloons were fabric and rapidly vanished. Price for price does anyone  forgo ever so cute RKs for a chummy?

[Mike Costigan]

1929 was almost the most successful year for Austin Seven sales (26,447, only exceeded -just - by 1935) but saloons outnumbered tourers by more than two-to-one. 1928 saw more tourers sold than 1929, and was also the last year that tourers outsold saloons.

1928: 8,233 tourers, 6,473 saloons
1929: 5,304 tourers, 11,916 saloons

These figures are for the Longbridge-built cars, if you add in the Mulliner and Gordon England saloons which were sold through the Austin Dealer network, then saloons outsold tourers in 1928 too.

[Hedd_Jones]

Not long ago I had cause to go through the registration documents for a welsh county. I had access from about 1925 to 1940.

Being particularly interested in the period 1928 to 1931, it was quite noticeable that in 1928 the great majority of the cars were open cars, but by 1930 the great majority were closed cars. Indeed open cars were quite unusual.

I remembered that Wyatts book had some production figures in it, and it does, but only 1928 onwards.

In Austin 7 terms, looks like 1928 there were more tourers than saloons. and the 1928 figure is the highest figure for tourers in the table (notwithstanding no data 1927 or earlier). But in 1929 sales of the fabric saloon nearly doubled, sales of normal saloons increased fairly well, but tourer sales decreased significantly meaning from 1929 onwards, the saloon was king.

I would suggest that the cost of the fabric saloons meant that to the consumer, whatever extra they cost over a tourer was considered to be worth the money for the extra comfort.

The introduction of the steel bodies in 1930 seems to have been a hit. It would probably be worth looking at the relative cost of a tourer/saloon in 1928, and the same in 1930. The steel 1930 bodies will have been a lot cheaper to produce vs what are essentially coachbuilt bodies on the 28 saloons. Whearas there is not a lot of difference in the tourer.

[Archivist]

Many of the Brochures published on the Archive web site have list prices included, so research on releative costs should be straight forward...

http://archive.a7ca.org/collections/show-brochures/

[jpsmit]

I can also imagine that 1929 would have been the culmination of a slow return to prosperity and confidence post Great War - only to see it dashed by the depression that same year, which would overshadow the rest of the production years of the 7 until 1939 - and the Second World War.

So, 1929 could have been that one untroubled year.

[Charles Levien]

I think we all love the scuttle mounted ‘head lights’ — reminiscent of lamps on a horse drawn carriage 
but when the heads went forward, and stayed there, in 1929 the car came into the modern age.
Perhaps this noticeable change encouraged some to buy?

[Tony Griffiths]

Possibly, the best balance between the "cuteness" of early cars and the "useability" of later variants is indeed the 1928 to mid-1930 Chummy. These had a stronger chassis, a better-supported body; bigger, front-mounted headlamps and, on late cars in the group, an oil pressure gauge. Post mid-1930, the wider body, tall radiator and larger bonnet made the appearance rather more prosaic and, with an increase in weight came a diminished performance. Today though it hardly matters; our Ruby attracts just as much public interest as our early 1929 Chummy and it's only we enthusiasts who appreciate and enjoy the subtle and non-too subtle differences between the models.