[Healeys] Non Healey Austin question

Peter Dzwig pdzwig at summaventures.com
Tue Aug 15 06:05:40 MDT 2017


It's a great looking car and you've obviously done a load of work on it.


You don't say what year it is.

This is on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_A70 (but note that several of the links are
broken)

The note to the picture of the utility A70 - similar to yours - on the page says:

"The Hampshire was a larger version of the A40 Somerset, (shared the same doors)
it looked similar but longer and wider and larger 4 cyl engine. Available mainly
as Saloon, but a few Estates and Pickups were built." Unfortunaterly it doesn't
say by whom.

There's various stuff in the Museums Victoria Collection - some of the pickups
were assembled in Melbourne (which I guess that you know anyway).

The odd thing is that all of the documentation refers to fared-in bodies (i.e.
including the flatbed) and yet yours doesn't have one. So I guess that the bed
and body must have been made by a third-party or were one that were being
trialled (hence "new model"??). Perhaps Austin were looking at production of a
light commercial vehicle?

The Austin Counties Register ( http://www.austincounties.org.uk/) seems to imply
on their counties page that the chassis were made available for third parties to
build commercial vehicles. ["A longer-wheelbase chassis was available for
commercial applications, including pick-ups, vans and metal-bodied estate
cars."] You could try contacting them.

I notice that some bodies for utilities were made by Carbodies...I wonder if
that **might** be the origin of the "C"?

One thing might be to find out who the local importer was and see if their
records are available. Perhaps you could find out in what form it was imported
to Aus (I assume that it was an original import)

Wish I could help more.

Peter



On 14/08/2017 22:42, Larry Varley wrote:
> Hi Guys. Excuse the non Healey question. I’m hoping someone on the list has
> access to early Austin records. I have an Austin A70 Hampshire utility with an
> unusual body / chassis number prefix. Normally the utilities were prefixed BQU2.
> This one is BQC2. I have suspicions that it was built as a cab chassis
> commercial with no rear utility tub. I have questioned British Heritage about it
> and they say that in the records BQU2 has been crossed out and BQC2 hand written
> with the comment “new type”. However they admit they don’t have a lot of
> knowledge about it as they produce very few heritage certificates for this range
> of vehicles. This vehicle was produced in December 1950 was shipped from Austin
> in lead primer.  I have attached a photo for interest.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Larry Varley
> 
> 
> 
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-- 

===========================================================
Dr Peter Dzwig				



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