(first posted 4/5/2012) Does this face look familiar? British Motor Corporation (later merged into infamous British Leyland) did a lot of business with Pininfarina in the 1960s. Starting with the 1958 Austin A40, the Italian design house designed pretty much all the BMC cars through the sixties, including our featured car. Pininfarina recycled his themes among his clients, so if the front end of this Austin A110 looks mighty similar to the Peugeot 404, it’s no coincidence.
The similar but somewhat shorter Austin A99 was introduced in 1959, replacing the A95/A105 saloons and estates. The rounded styling of the outgoing model was replaced with much more angular lines – and fins!
The US market was the 600-pound gorilla of the automotive world at the time, and even in Old Blighty, where Bel Airs and Fleetwood Sixty Specials were derided as Yank Tanks, American styling cues crept into some European cars. The A99/A110, which I only vaguely knew of prior to writing this post, looks an awful lot like a W110 Mercedes fintail, and was introduced at about the same time. Compare the Westminster above with the W110 below; the slab sides, modest fins and angular roof line are in evidence on both.
The A99 was powered by the 2.9L C-Series inline six with twin SU carburetors, the same engine used in the Austin Healey 3000 roadster. A three-speed column-shifted manual with synchromesh was standard, with an automatic Borg-Warner unit optional. Front disc brakes were also standard. The A99 lasted through 1961, when it was replaced by the revised A110.
Among other changes, the A110 featured a two-inch longer wheelbase (to 110″) and the transmission shift moved from the column to the floor. A Mark II came out in 1964 with smaller 13-inch wheels and a four-speed transmission, it lasted until 1968 which was the end of the line for this model. It was replaced by the unsuccessful Austin 3 Litre.
As was common with BMC in the Sixties, badge-engineered versions were sold alongside the Westminster: the middle-class Wolseley 6/110 and the luxury Vanden Plas Princess. The 4-Litre R (seen above) introduced in October 1964, featured a de-stroked F-head straight six Rolls Royce engine; it was the only civilian mass-produced car with a RR engine that wasn’t a Rolls Royce or Bentley. Only a few thousand were built and the Vanden Plas 4-Litre R was discontinued shortly before the British Leyland merger was completed.
Special thanks are due to splateagle, who found this great example and posted the pics to the Cohort!
Must be one the half dozen English cars that have survived this long. I do note that it is parked and the lights are not on.
While oldsters like this are definitely rare, they’re less rare than you might think. And this one is definitely still running and in fairly regular use.
33 licensed vehicles Austin A110 Westminster are left.
please see here:
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk
There are a few of these kicking around Western Canada (the earlier ones mostly) – usually in either perfect or project condition. Very few in an in between driver condition. I love British cars and I love an oddball car but these do nothing for me. A very average sort of car – nothing horrifically wrong with them but not exactly overflowing with character either.
That RR 4L engine was used in the Austin Champ as well (a British Jeep style vehicle). A friend of mine had one (the Austin sedan not the champ) with the 4L – quite an old fashioned, heavy looking lump.
Indeed, last summer in Seattle I saw a perfect-condition Wolseley 6/110, with BC plates and a Vancouver dealer badge. (Sadly sans camera, Wikipedia photo here.)
Very striking, its proportions are so different from anything else now on the road. It was in use, parked at a coffee shop. I watched as its elderly woman owner drove it away under its own power.
Austin, Wolseley, Vanden Plas, as the British motor industry imploded in the 1960s they were the kings of badge engineering.
Actually, Rootes may take the title for really cultivating the art of badge engineering, but back in the thirties already. It was an old tradition by the sixties.
Exactly Paul Rootes were badge engineering long before BMC existed Ill get some pics for the cohort Im off to the Humber/Hillman club AGM this weekend and there will be a show so as usual Im taking yall along.
This car was sold in Argentina under the name ‘Siam DiTella’.
The Siam is based on the much smaller 4 cylinder Austin Cambridge.. Very similar styling but smaller in every way.
Well it was a huge hit in Argentina. For whatever reason it was the default taxi choice there for a period – and would have been much more spacious and comfortable than the horrible little Chev’s they have now! In Peutro Madero there is a statue to the taxi drivers, complete with a full size bronze Siam with driver standing beside it!
Just up the road, outside Mercedes Benz’s Argentina head office, is another life size bronze…Juan Fangio and his Mercedes!
I wonder if it was this very one I saw a few years back in Vancouver. Can’t be too many nice ones around.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/4667396511/
I’m pretty sure the one I saw was all one color, and had current plates. Does the BC plate stay with the car or the owner?
Owner
The FB60 engine in the 4 Litre R was not the same as the B40/B60 in the Champ, although it was related to it. It also wasn’t exactly just a Rolls-Royce six with a shorter stroke: it was all aluminum, where the previous Rolls engine only had an aluminum head. (It wasn’t exactly 4 liters, either; the actual displacement was 3,909 cc.)
Rolls-Royce planned a whole bunch of applications for this engine, all cheaper models to be co-developed with BMC and probably to be sold as Bentleys. BMC also strongly considered putting it in several other cars, including an E-type rival called ADO30 and the next-generation Austin-Healey, but the only one that ever made it was the Princess 4 Litre R.
One interesting detail about the 4 Litre R is that in the U.K., it was badged and sold as a Vanden Plas. (U.S. cars I think were just sold as Austins, although I believe they still had VDP badges.) Vanden Plas was a London-based coachbuilder that Austin acquired right after the war. They acted as a captive coachworks for a while, then eventually the name became just a trim series, not unlike Fleetwood at GM. The Vanden Plas interior is arguably the nicest part of the 4 Litre R cars: very trad British luxury, with lots of wood and fold-down picnic tables.
but quik a VDP 4L could outpace nearly anything short of an Etype Jag or 4.5L V8 Daimler
The Champ used a 4-cylinder B40 RR engine… I can’t remember the exact capacity – about 2.8 litre i think it was. These were also made in 6 and 8 cylinder versions (B60 and B80) for use in various armoured cars and military things. (the alvis stalwart used the 8 cylinder version)
The FB60 in the VP was a development of the 6-cylinder but quite different in many ways such as alloy block, shorter stroke and hydraulic tappets.
My wife’s grandparents have this car’s predecessor, an A105, lying derelict in their backyard. It holds a strange sort of appeal to me.
There’s your project car. How can your wife object? ;->
Dude those are rare and worth saving if possible I once had a 55 A90 with 4 speed overdrive a nice fast car on the road it could surprise much alledgedly faster more modern cars and debadged looked like the 4cyl A50.
The civilian reference to the Vanden Plas is very apt, since the engine it uses is part of the B series modular (4, 6, & 8 cylinder) F head engine developed for the British military and used in the Champ, Ferret and Saladin/Saracen/Stalwart family of vehicles.
The rear of the Westminster really accentuates how tall and narrow the car is, and makes for a really awkward look. There is something about these British sedans of this era that fascinates me. Fuel prices and tax structures throughout Europe required small and efficient cars. The Germans made them sturdy, the French made them ride well, the Italians made them beautiful. The British? Hmmmmmm.
This one was even styled by Pinanfarina and it still lookes frumpy. Maybe Britain was destined to build the Studebakers of Europe. But Studebakers fascinate me too.
I attribute it to the basic conservatism of the British monied class in that period. There were British saloons of this period that weren’t frumpy — Jaguars, for instance — but those cars were often considered too flash for polite society. The really posh models maintained a stiff upper lip stylistically, and the smaller and cheaper tried to emulate that in miniature; probably the most extreme example is the Triumph Mayflower, which was like a bonsai version of the razor-edged Hooper body school of the late 1930s. It wasn’t until the mid-sixties that there started to be a sizable market for the slightly sportier junior exec mobile like the Rover P6 and Triumph 2000 (and of course the latter was styled by Michelotti…).
Conservative styling has not disappeared. The huge sales of Camry and Lexus cars in the US is living proof. Cadillac Escalade is still too flash for polite society.
Oh, I completely agree, but there’s less of the “make it look like a tiny Rolls-Royce, even if the lines don’t work at all for the proportions” thing that led to the Mayflower and so forth. Mid-market D- and E-segment cars may be bland and conservative, but they don’t generally look as gawky or oddly proportioned as some of the British saloons of the mid-fifties.
This. 1949-1953
Saw a Mayflower at a car show last fall with a window placard reading “Honey, I shrunk the Rolls!”
Comfort and a nice ride were all in these Austins as for sturdy dont bring Mercedes to a Demo derby to compete against Westmonsters coz they cant
I did a comparison on automobile catalog, and this car and the W111 Fintail are within inches of each other in every critical dimension. Notably, the Benz is slightly longer and wider, and very slightly shorter. Yet what a difference in appearance, The Benz is crisp and expansive, the Austin is frumpy and inclusive – like someone rained on a W111 clay.
Here’s the comparo:
http://www.automobile-catalog.com/auta_cmp2.php
I have the Matchbox version of this car (in two-tone green). It’s very sharp in diecast form.
Thanks to Matchbox, I was familiar with the various British Motor Corporation (BMC) cars, as the company always featured an Austin or Morris in its line-up. Interestingly, Matchbox seemed to like both British AND American Fords, too.
I also knew that “lorry” is the British term for “truck,” and “articulated” means “bends in the middle.” And that Ford has a subsidiary building cars that, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were nothing like the American Fords I saw on a daily basis.
My parents never realized the educational value of those little cars and trucks I was pestering them to buy.
Decades before the BP shield appeared at US gas stations, one of my favorite childhood toys was a brilliant green Matchbox BP tanker truck.
I thought I remembered this as a Matchbox, but was not sure. Thanks for the refresher.
Ha! One of my favorite Matchboxes was a ’60s “Ford Zephyr.” Looks like a Falcon to me?
In reality they were much better that falcons
British and Germsn Fords and I suppose British GM and EU cars were generally to some degree shrunken versions of US models in the 1950’s – 60’s and maybe before that too. I have no idea if the same people designed them, where the work was done, if they just got a US model and copied it or what. But you can see clear echoes of US models in most of them.
A random bunch of British Fords over the years I found:
http://slatford.co.uk/Car%20Pictures%20Pages/Ford.htm
Look at the greenhouse of the pictured 1960 Ford Zephyr for example. Just like a 1952-54 American Ford.
My parents bought a Ford Zephyr in 1959 to replace our 1956 Consul that had been totaled. Served as the family car through the ’60’s. I thought it was way better than a Falcon. Where I grew up near Philadelphia hardly anyone even knew what it was.
Great old beasts these smooth fast and comfortable but they ran a DG automatic untill the MK11 model when the weak rubbish borg warner slush was fitted and one of this cars most intertesting features was deleted, The DG trans had a variable pitch system which allowed the lower gear shift points to be altered allowing over 70mph in second gear one other feature was the ability to push start once 25 mph was attained it was recommended to push with another car rather than towing the manual also recommends inflationg the tyres to 30psi if sustained speeds in excess of 90 mph are expected. Like most English cars of this era with any power at all these cars were designed for the new motorways which had no speed limits. Thousands of these Austins and their Wolseley bretheren survive in NZ, they were very popular new.
I would have rather seen the “Whomping Willow” destroy one of these. 😛
The last one of these 110s I owned was entered in a demo derby these and Super Snipes were favourites for that but my old one disintegrated upon impact under my ownership I put nearly 1 gallon of filler in it I knew it was seriously rusty when I bought it but I got it for towing and launching a boat.
That Austin looks quite a bit like the Datsun 1600 my neighbor owns.
not all that surprising when you know the companies’ history…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors#Austin_Motor_Company
I’ve alsways loved the styling of the Wolseley 6/99 and 6/110 – a 6/110 is on my short-list of classics to one day own. As Bryce noted, there were loads of them sold here, and I still see Wolseley versions a couple times a month (it helps that there are two living locally).
There’s also a VDP 4 Litre R locally – my mechanic replaced the engine in it a couple years ago. The original engine was going to cost over NZ$10,000 to recondition, so the owner wanted had a GM-Holden 3.3 litre straight 6 installed instead. A strange choice I thought, but my mechanic said it was one of the few straight 6s narrow enough to fit between the VDP’s narrow chassis rails. And the original engine was going into storage should any future owner want to recondition and refit it.
Have only ever seen one Austin version, and A99, which really stood out as its grille had a distinctive crinkle finish to it, similar to the 1958 Austin-Healey 100.
Thanks for the write-up Tom, nice to see a car I like covered in CC!
Never seen one… the styling is VERY schizophrenic between front and rear, especially if viewed only head-on from each end. I kinda like it, though – it’s the automotive version of a (reverse) mullet!
Someone mentioned seeing them in Canada, were these ever officially imported to the US?
a couple of years ago there was a horror story i the press whinston churchills very rare austin westminster 2 door pillarless coupe and his very rare austin westmister shooting brake …were banger raced…how dare they,the monsters thease were 2 very rare cars
BMC cars of the ’60s remind me of GM cars of the ’80s, and are similarly fascinating in a ‘disaster-slowly-unfolding’ kind of way. Except the styling is more charming.
Beautiful write up there Tom, chuffed to pieces to see my hastily grabbed snaps so well used – thanks!
The Austin Champ used a 4cyl engine- they had a weird suspension system that proved a disaster in rough terrain so the much tougher Land Rover killed them off. The marvellous VDP used an IOE engine- very unusual and very refined. They had superb interiors and I’m told drive and handle surprisingly well for such a barge. Jimmy
Your thinking of the early Austin Gipsy with its rotoflex suspension similar looks to a Landrover, the Champ is another vehicle altogether.
Our family arrived in Canada Aug 1/59 from the UK at Halifax’s Pier 21. I was 11, and trying to overcome my shock at being offered a Kellogg’s Bowl-Pac of cornflakes by a kindly Welcome Wagon man at the bottom of the last staircase after Customs and Immigration. His attitude seemed to be that we were refugee waifs from a war-torn Europe. “Bet you’ve never seen these before!”, he said. When I asked for Rice Krispies instead, he recoiled in horror!
My next surprise after bursting out onto the street was to see a parked black ’59 Cadillac. In fact, all the cars were ginormous cartoons. It seemed as though they were props, objects that couldn’t actually move under their own power. It was a dreamland for a young car nut, obnoxiously English, a state carefully cultivated by the schools I had attended. England was Number 1. The rest were merely foreigners.
Well, a couple of months later, after attending school, that British snobbishness had been sanded off. I discovered only a few British cars worked reliably in Nova Scotia. Ford Consuls and Zephyrs, Vauxhall Crestas, and the Austin A55/Morris Oxford, Standard Vanguard and the big Austin Westminsters, subject of this CC. Various MGAs and Triumph TR3s were around and well-looked after, but rare.
Step forward a few years, and I was at college, where rich kids from Montreal and Toronto came to get a BA when their high school grades were, shall we say, insufficient, to make it to U of T, McGill or Queens. I soon made pals with a TR3 owner, but he was just a poseur, and unwilling to drive hard. But then, aha, met a probable sociopath with a Healey 3000 sporting triple SUs. He had a lead foot.
Intellectually, I was a big bore, short stroke kind of guy, heads down in pre-engineering. My mother’s Ford Anglia 105E would rev like crazy, my motor sport nut aunt back in Oxford sent me Motoring News every week. I was the only guy around who knew about F1, Formula Junior and Cosworth. The only motoring mags around on the newsstands were Hot Rod and Car Craft.
But that big Healey engine always fascinated me. It would burble along at a thousand revs, then roar past 5K with brio. It throttle-steered the car just like it was supposed to. The sound it made was glorious, and remains with me to this day. Sure, a Honda Civic would probably beat it today, but probably wouldn’t do over 130 mph like that Healey did. Frightening as hell, but amazing.
I took to hitchhiking home from university for weekends, a 90 mile trip, and scored the best ride when I got into an Austin A110 automatic for part of a trip. I expected it to be like my friend’s Morris Oxford, but no. That car made every other car I rode in seem like a crude bag o’ bolts, all the Detroit stuff could not compare. It rode very well, felt solid on our crappy roads, and was quiet, the big six smooth and with just a hint of the Healey sound.
The Annapolis Valley is a rural place, and I got another ride in the same car a few months later. Made friends with the owner, he gave me his schedule, and if I was there at the right time, got a ride. Only a couple times more.
Whatever went wrong with BMC, and subsequently BL, those Westminsters weren’t built like the average tin can. They were good.
My Dad bought an old Austin Gipsy to plow his driveway. No RR engine in that beast, but a 2199 cc long stroke Austin chuffer from the Ice Age that would start mid winter when there was no hope for his Morris 1800. Now that was a bag of rubbish from beginning to end.
Meanwhile, look on You-Tube for AH 3000. There are a couple of modern day ones that go like stink on the racetrack, and which capture that glorious engine’s sound at full chat, as they used to say. Just lovely.
Bruce, thanks for the nice commentary. Your arrival reminds me more than a bit of mine, in 1960, from Austria. It’s in the Auto-Biography section on the right side.
Welcome to CC.
Cool Bruce Ive owned Westminsters and I learned to drive in a Austin Gipsy, A work mate had a Westy with triple SUs and headers it went like stink
Lol Funny
grt !!!
The Chinese limo Hong Qi CA770 has the similar look, but it is much large vehicle and based on 1957 Chrysler Imperial.
These days western media and auto makers often complained Chinese auto industry copies the look of the western designed auto. I wonder if the Peugeot or Austin traded any complaint each other then.
I never see this model of Austin, but I saw few Peugeot 404 in Chinese in 1970. It is a car about the size of mid-90 Honda Civic. Peugeot 404 is much handsome vehicle than Civic, it is originated from an Italian design power house.
Another squandered opportunity by BMC – the British Motor Corporation – who held these brands. I’ve owned both the Fintail and the BMC Wolseley/Princess versions of these cars. The Fintail retailed at a much higher price than the BMC product but was light-years better. My biggest gripe with the Wolseley was in its handling and particularly its very dead steering feel – with a very low-tech steering box and mushy power steering – really grim. The car was no match for the contemporary – although slightly later offerings from Rover (2000) and Triumph (2000). In all – the BMC product was not much fun to pilot and not really a vehicle you’s want to make repeated journeys in.
The squandered opportunity – why did it not have decent rack and pinion steering or something like that – BMC had the technology – and why wasn’t it’s engineering developed in its life span like the Fintail? There was always a feeling of ‘just good enough but no better’ with these cars – and ultimately they were a relative failure in the marketplace – the Princess 4-litre shifted less than 10,000 units in its lifespan and when you factor in development must have made little profit.
The major saving grace was that the Princess had a 4-litre six with 170 bhp – that was fun – but overall good looking but stodgy cars of which few have passed into preservation.
BMC/BLMC never really went in for developing engineering during the (long) life of their products. There might be a mild facelift at the point in the cycle when e.g. Ford would be introducing a whole new model. Or there would be the “use the buyers to complete the pre-production testing” approach (Maxi) then rush out an improved version 12 months after launch, by which time the public’s decided it’s a lemon. They really were the authors of most of their misfortunes.