Andeh
is teahte tbungafloed
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2007
- Messages
- 3,517
- Location
- Cumbria, UK
- Car(s)
- Fiestas, Mondeos, Anglia, Austin 7, Corsair, Chrys
With the Anglia being used regularly throughout the summer, my father and I soon discovered that the winter months ideally need something car related as well. We couldn't keep using the Anglia, due to the sheer amount of salt on the roads, but at the same time, we couldn't tinker with it forever either; we needed something a bit different. For the last year, I've been attending Vintage Sports-Car Club meetings, and of course, that meant only one thing: something old. Properly old.
This fits the bill, it's a 19-er-something Austin Seven. It's registered as 1929, but the majority of it is 1933 or so, so I'll call it that. The car is fundamentally a special, that is, one created in someone's imagination albeit in a period style. The body is hand made and designed, there's no other one like this, certainly not that the Longbridge Austin factory ever produced anyway. It only has a wheelbase of 6'3", a 747cc engine (but nicely breathed upon), cable brakes, wire wheels and manual everything.
I'm writing this with freezing hands, having just battled to free the bottom hose to drain the water, and refill with new antifreeze. That's because we bought the car down in Cornwall, where it was 8c, and it's now in Cumbria at -3c and falling fast. So after 10 hours of driving it back on a trailer, a gentle introduction to pre-war maintenance!
The plan is for my father to keep busy with the mechanicals in his retirement, driving it for leisure, whilst me and a friend take the car out to VSCC Trials. Which is basically off-roading up very steep muddy hills, in pre-war cars.
More pictures and much more information when it's not bloody freezing and late at night. Yes, it looks so much better with the hood down!