Youtube has many surprises, and this is one I spotted last week. An Austin A35, Austin and BMC’s entry level car at the time, was picked at random from the production line at Longbridge and handed over to the RAC for a country wide economy test and demonstration, all accompanied by a Pathé news film crew in what appears to an Austin Westminster.
The plot is as simple as they come, and has been endlessly repeated by practically every manufacturer at some point. In this case, a trip around southern England just before Christmas 1956, before motorways and bypasses.
The A35 was an evolution of the earlier and visually very similar A30, first introduced in 1951 with a 948cc version of the BMC A series engine. In 1956, this went to 1098cc, marking the major change to the A35. The A30 was the first monocoque Austin, and could be seen as a response to the Morris Minor, albeit measurably more compact. Still, the cars shared engines from 1953 ands sold against each other for several years. The Minor was ultimately more successful and longer lived, and more fondly remembered in the UK, but the Austin was no failure.
53 MPG is pretty impressive, even when you consider Imperial Gallons are about 20 % mor volume than US Gallon, it still works out to around 44 MPG US.
It weighed about half of what a modern vehicle in that class now weighs. Imagine how much more mpgs it could get, using contemporary fuel/ignition management systems and aluminum substitutions for, among others, cast iron heads- and gearbox casings
It could have been better designed in the first place. The knowledge existed. I never understood why they didn’t have an eight-port head. Iron rather than aluminium would have been cheaper, and cheaper seemed to be the Austin way. Dad’s pre-BMC Morris Oxford had an aluminium sump; Austin would never have countenanced that.
Of course the knowledge existed, but my unhinged colonial theory is that Sir Herbert, for all his Australian (and indeed, Melburnian) duration and marriage, never showed the sort of absolute generosity to workers (and others) that Lord Nuffield at Morris did, so the firm in his (Austin’s) name gave the lower classes only barely what they could afford even well after his death!
Doesn’t sound all that impressive to me, given the low speeds it was driven at (35-45 mph) My VW Beetle 1200 would get that rolling along at 50-55.
Really? That seems awfully abstemious . Have a look at the chart in the link of a VW 1200 at 50 mph (as well as at higher speeds), and it suggests about 42 mpg at 50, but that’s Imperial, so 35-odd mpg US.
(I looked at this because the user “Trigger’s Retro Road Tests” on Flicker has an absolute treasure-chest of late-’50’s-onwards UK road test, and I’ve read heaps of them over time – and by chance, I read the VW test recently. Shout-out to whoever he is, in case he reads this site!)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/triggerscarstuff/12595956985/in/album-72157641128138523/
Autocar tested the VW 1200 in 1963 and gave a fuel consumption range in normal driving of 29 to 36 mpg (imperial), so 23.2 to 28.8 mpg US. Overall on their 1,249 mile test they got 30.9 mpg (24.72).
Reading through the test, they were generally impressed, the only significant complaints were the effects of side winds due to the relatively light front end and some forward visibility issues due to thick window pillars (though that was improved just a few years later). At that time rear engined cars from the Continent were not unusual and break-away with more vigorous cornering was mentioned (“Opposite lock produced instant correction”), and noting in the wet it could happen at lower speeds.
Curious about the relatively high fuel consumption on both these British tests. The 40hp 1200 VW was advertised widely to get an average of 32 (US) mpg, and that was very much my experience in lots of cross-country driving. But there were times I literally ran out of money on the return leg of a trip and had to drive slow in order to make it home. I calculated 40+ mpg on one of those runs.
R&T got between 31.2 (lowest) and 36.7 (highest) mpg on their stock ’54 they tested. I’ll try to find some other US reviews.
The VW’s figures are very comparable to other similar size cars Autocar tested in that issue (mpg imp/US):
Austin A40 Mk.II 30.4 / 24.32
VW 1200 Beetle 30.9 / 24.72
Ford Anglia Super 31.4 / 25.12
Morris 1100 32.7 / 26.16
Renault R8 33.7 / 26.54
A previous VW tested 3 years earlier returned an overall figure of 31.6 / 25.28.
None of these are getting anywhere near 40 mpg, perhaps because of larger percentage of stop-start and town driving with relatively few long-distance, constant speed journeys and probnably less than 100 miles of motorway in the whole fo the country.
Justy ;
The reality then was : VW’s print adverts claimed 25 or more MPG and most owners easily got 27 ~ 32 MPG combined .
When my own older 36HP Beetles dropped below 32 MPG I knew something was seriously amiss .
Now my ’59 runs like a top but rarely exceeds 25 MPG, once in a while on a long full tank Desert drive (about 250 + miles) will yield 27 MPG, it *must* be the crappy yellow (like piss or beer) “Motor Fuels ” Californians get stuck with .
–Nate
VW’s print adverts claimed 25 or more MPG
For the many years of the 1200, VW always claimed 32 mpg. (see ad below)
For the ’66 1300, they advertised 29 mpg. And for the ’67 and up 1500, they advertised 27 mpg. And for the later 1600s, it was 25 mpg.
Thanx Paul ;
That’s a 1960 model # 113 Deluxe with the 36HP engine, note also that it says “TOP SPEED IS CRUISING SPEED” ~ a claim they dropped in 1961 with the new 40HP engine…
I guess I was thinking of the later adverts that claimed 25MPG .
I’m still bummed about the crappy Foo-Foo fuel we’re stuck with .
-Nate
The A30 was 803 cc and the A35 948 cc. The A series didn’t get to 1098 cc until the 1960s and the A40. Although the last A35 vans might have got 1098.
My first car was a ’57 A35 van – cost me £20 in 1968, back brakes were seized, passenger door was held shut with string and I had to park it on a hill to get it to start in the winter. Sold it for a tenner after a year.
That was a super fun video to watch, I tried to find the stop locations on google maps and could match the scene in Staines, Frome, and Banbury. That would be unlikely in North America where we have redeveloped or neglected town centers into oblivion.
Although the soundtrack was rather sprightly, the two British gentlemen conducting the test seemed quite dour.
Now I know Frome is pronounced “Froom.”
Thanx for this interesting historical look at the A35 and England in 1956 .
I always thought these looked like toys .
Notice that during the rainy part of driving the vent wing and side windows were cracked ever so slightly yet the glass was still opaque .
-Nate
HVAC in those days was either non-existent, or feeble.
A30/35s were everywhere, once. They were styled to look like a bigger car, yet were so narrow even then. Today, they look like a toy against modern traffic.
Hard work doing a tour like that. No motorways, two lane roads, all the lorries to overtake, through the ancient city centres with their narrow roads.
Interestingly they did not use the prop for the trunk lid, it was just left open to lean against the rear window. Fascinating to see they did not have problems with misted windows (as said by other before), and driving with the hands on the steering wheels’ spokes.
Forgot to write that the following car probably was not a Westminster. A Westminster never had that upright grille which is just visible in one shot so I think they used an Austin Princess.
Love how they happily use the precision tool known in Sheffield as a “Brimingham Screwdriver” on the productionline at 1.05 on the video
Hehehe! I noticed that too.
Still, later on, under Leyland, they didn’t even bother with those. In fact, come to think of it, they often didn’t bother much with actual screwdrivers either.
As did I and I’m sure, everyone else here .
“Harley – Davidson Wrenches” were a common assembly line tool at the time in the less well built vehicles .
The willingness of BMC to allow such sloppy jig works when welding up the unibody is one of the primary reasons the English motor industry died : you never knew how well it would (or, wouldn’t) drive until you got behind the wheel .
As sad thing for those of use who loved LBC’s .
-Nate
They were still using those screwdrivers until fairly recently, when Honda showed them how a snap-together model could be designed.
Many an unhappy journey stuck in the back of one of these as a kid. The gentlemen’s coats give away that it had either no heater or no heat. God only knows how this was ‘styled’, but they always looked like little piggies. However, the MPG has impressive, possibly because the roads were so slow. Today, the same journey would take a longish day.
The economy is indeed impressive. But these were cramped, miserable little cars, hot in summer and freezing in winter even with an overcoat such as the men wore here. You could get a heater, but the windows still misted up, the tiny glass needing frquent wiping. How much we take modern HVAC systems for granted.
Admittedly my experience is with the earlier, slower, 803cc A30, but it was interesting to see the speeds they used; you wouldn’t have cruised an A30 at 50! Amazing to see them overtaking lorries. Just as well they didn’t have a microphone inside the car.
It would have been interesting to have the RAC strip down the engine after this run and check for wear. A run like this would likely have killed the earlier car which had a notoriously weak engine and horrible gearing.
Liked the young women at the petrol pumps; I don’t recall girls working at that job in my country.
I was a teenage gas jokey for Atlantic Richfield (now ARCO) long long ago .
A ‘interesting’ job to say the least, I didn’t mind it .
-Nate
There’s more A35 action (engine durability testing) in this video.
The Suez Crisis of July ’56 would have made fuel economy of vital importance by Christmas of ’56. England weathered the Suez Crisis, but they didn’t handle it well. Neither did France and Israel.
My thanks to those who previously pointed-out the extreme low speeds driven, and the hugeness of Imperial gallons.
What a waste to drive the Autobahn at an average speed of 60 mph. But then, some of us consider 950cc engines to be a bit small for a motorcycle, never mind a car.
Point of comparison: I routinely drove 1850-ish miles to visit Dear Old Dad in a ’92 and a ’93 Lumina Euro 3.4 in 30 clock hours; hampered by 70–80 mph speed limits. My “personal best” was 28 hours. I typically got 24 mpg, but I think my mileage was lightly sabotaged by piston slap causing the knock sensor to retard the ignition timing.
For all the cutsie comedy styling, there’s a pinched meaness about these things.
And that very styling is amongst the causes, because it proves in a dire manner the axiom that big car proportions need to be very, very carefully applied to small cars (or better still, not used at all, like the Mini).
Yeah, sure, it was designed for weeny roads and no motorways and for a price, but it didn’t have to be actively punitive. Or, indeed, actively ridiculous, style-wise.
In quite a lot of ways, these undignified conveyances for the lower orders show just how practically advanced the Beetle was, what with its standard heater, its 4-wheel IRS, its (relative) aero, its cruising ability – not to mention its vastly better mechanical longevity.
My retrospective sympathies to the commenters above who actually had to ride in them, rather than giggle from the outside.
I meant to add, Sir Rog, that I saw this vid just a few days before you put it up, and it was a great idea for you to throw it up here on CC.
Agreed; I’ve thought these were one of the worst styled cars ever since someone gave me a Dinky Toy of one when I was a wee lad. What a polar contrast to the Minor, which works so well in comparison.
The key to this Pathe film is the timing – late 1956. Britain had just involved itself (along with France and Israel) in the Suez debacle. The US (understandably) smacked Britain across the knuckles, Britain withdrew and all misguided dreams of being a primary Great Power dissolved into ashes.
The whole mess was accompanied by a panic about fuel availability, and the reintroduction of petrol rationing. Hence the title of the film, “Making the Most of It” (which has a real Blitz throwback feel). Bubble cars from Isetta, Messerschmidt (!) and BMW poured into Britain, and BMC accelerated development of the Mini – so something good came out of a whole heap of bad.
The A35 should already have been withdrawn from the market and replaced with the Farina A40, which at least looked like a modern car, and could have been an early hatchback (but wasn’t), but of course BMC couldn’t just make one model when three would do…