Austin of England

[airboatr]

I had meeting with a business partner yesterday and during our trip out to a site of interest we stopped by the shop of a man who restores rare automobiles.
Believe it or not, this is a daily driver.

[Garry Russell]

Looks in good nick Joe...the only thing missing is the front number plate

Can't quite make ot the back...is it a saloon or an estate car??

[DarrenL]

Who does he think he is, James Hunt?

The ex-F1 world champion used an Austin A35 van (countryman) as his daily driver as well.

[Garry Russell]

Ah yeah ..maybe it's a van

[airboatr]

I'm uploading a video of it now Garry. It's a van I suppose you would call it. Here, we call them panel wagons.

[Garry Russell]

Cheers Joe

Sometimes they're called panel vans and often it's the estate shell with recessed panels where the window cutouts would be and of course a freight interior

[speedbird591]

Nice find, Joe! That's an Austin A40 van circa 1955. The A30/35 was smaller and rounder.

My brother had an old A35 van in the 60s and I remember seeing him in town at a T-junction waiting for a gap in the traffic. A truck (lorry in them days) turned across in front of him and just clipped his offside front wing. As the bolts holding it in place were well rusted, the whole wing just dropped off into the road virtually undamaged. He threw it in the back of the van and drove around with an open wheel for a couple of weeks until he could be bothered to bolt it back on. It'd be a bit more hassle nowadays methinks!

I look forward to the video. (Not of my brother's bit of trouble, I meant Joe's video )

Ian

[airboatr]

Hold on, I'm experiencing technical difficulties gentleman. My phones' youtube upload widgtmacallit has gone tits up. I'll run down to the nearest open wifi hotspot. It'll be up in a jiffy, (that's about an hour American standard timeframe).

[airboatr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouiyUZ-cveM

Enjoy

[Dev One]

I would have known it as the Austin A40 Devon, about 1949/50 vintage, there then came the more rounded A40 Somerset about 1953 vintage ( I actually owned one of those - kept blowing the Cylinder head gasket between nos 2 & 3 every 3000 miles or so - I got it to a fine art; could change the gasket in 90 mins!). After that came the Farina A40 a 3 door hatchback we would now call it......
Those were the days...
Keith