AUSTIN POWERS ON

The Austin Seven of 1922 has given rise to generations of innovators - and still shows no sign of stopping, discovers Matt Prior

I doubt there’s another car in history that has influenced motorsport as much as the Austin Seven. Yet the little

Austin was never designed to be a racing car, nor even a sports car. When it made its debut 100 years ago, it was billed as a small and affordable family car – a simple car for the masses. “What other car gives so much at this price?” asked one early advert.

Modified Sevens did win races before production finished in 1939, but it was in the late 1940s, when plenty of pre-war cars were being scrapped and forgotten, that the Seven really took on a racing life. Its compactness, lightness and simplicity – all things that made it a great budget family car – were seized on by those who realised they were also good facets for racing.

A 750 Formula was created in 1949 with Sevens as the primary donors. Saloon bodies were routinely torn from the Austin’s distinctive A-frame chassis – two rails that supported the engine at the front and gradually spread to the rear, where they sprouted leaf springs that suspended a live axle.

Specials were fast and fun when near standard, but more highly modified, with their U-section chassis rails boxed in for strength, uprated engines, stiffening hoops welded over their frames and sleek bodies beaten out of aluminium, they became a primary way to win in the burgeoning club racing scene.

Those who competed comprise a who’s who of racing (see separate story, p59). Even Colin Chapman’s first four Lotus cars were Sevenbased, and I would argue the Austin DNA continues in today’s Caterham (née Lotus) Seven, the latest version of which featured in our Britain’s Best Driver’s Car contest last autumn.