Yes Garry, here's the story - in 1960, Sir Peter Masefield (ex Bristol Aircraft) and Pressed Steel Co got together and approached both Auster Aircraft & Miles Aircraft with an offer
and as a result British Executive & General Aircrat Ltd( BEAGLE) was formed. The Reasby factory became Beagle-Auster and Shoreham became Beagle-Miles.
Beagle-Auster, as a stop-gap, bought a number of Auster AOP-6's AND T-7's at military surplus sales (!). the plan being to get a C.A.A. certification with minimum cost. Having added a larger fin/rudder and a few other parts, they first made the Auster Tugmasters and after a lot of further additions , the Terriers were launched. Unfortunately because of the extra added weight, the Terrier had an inferior performance compared with the AOP-6. Also, more hours were spent per aircraft, stripping and rebuilding than they'd taken to build in the first place ! they lost a lot of money
(gleaned from a book by A.V. Hitchman -a director of both the original Auster and Beagle companies).
To keep everything tidy, I've called it an Auster rather than a Beagle-Auster.
HTH
Cheers
Dave M
