Filed Under: News
Austin 16, 1945 – 1949
The world of classic cars brings together many people of like minds, who love and cherish cars of a bygone era. Not an earth shattering statement by any means but if you get to the end of this article you will understand my sentiments.
I decided to write about the post-war Austin 16, which was produced between 1945 and 1949, like many of the cars I write about much of the information is derived from browsing the Internet and encyclopedias, however the information relating to the Austin 16 was minimal. Out of desperation, it was either abandon the project or look for an alternative source of information, there was virtually nothing other than what I had already gleaned, and that was insufficient to write an article.
By chance I found an Austin Counties Club Site, which obviously was dedicated to the County Series Cars, Dorset’s, Somersets, Herefords and the Devon, which were all produced after the war, there was also mention of the 16, but not enough for our article, I sent an E.mail asking if anyone had knowledge relating to the 16, this was Easter Monday, next morning there was an Email from Pete Simmonds giving plenty of material on the model, now you won’t believe the coincidence Pete’s father Barry worked on IT at Avonmore and Pete came to Kilkenny for a holiday when he was 10 and and stayed with no less a personage as Nicky Brennan, how about that.
Before deviating from the straight and narrow, the 16 had a 2199cc 4 cylinder OHV engine which produced 67BHP @ 3800 revs, a four speed manual gearbox was fitted. The 16 had a top speed of 75mph, it is stressed that this 16 was in no way related to the pre-war 16.
The 16’s body was a prewar Austin 12, in fairness it was a design that was produced just before the outbreak of war, though the engine was not new, it originated from a 6 cylinder truck unit which went on to be fitted to the A70 Hampshire and Hereford, the A90 Atlantic and the Austin Healey 100/4 had the same motor bored out to 2660cc, in addition the motor was fitted to the K8 van and the Gypsy, Austin fitted the unit in commercials up to the 1960’s.
Most of the production in 1945-1947 were exported, so the examples in the UK are in the main 48’s.
The 16 was quite luxurious, with leather upholstery and a sunroof, plus heater, some of the later cars came without the sunroof and optional needle cord upholstery could be specified.
It is strange that Austin fitted a hydraulic jacking system but used rod operated brakes, incidentally the handbrake worked on all four wheels.
Austin decided to fit “Woodies” or estate bodies to a number of chassis’s, and to be honest it was quite a good looking unit, at the time only Lea Francis was into Woodies, apparently the chassis were shipped out to Papworth Industries in Cambridgeshire for completion, oops here I go again through the Austin Counties site there is a very detailed article written by a Colin Peck on Austin 16 Woodies, we are at the moment trying to establish if Colin is the same Colin Peck I went to school with in Balham South West London.
I have no idea of the spares situation for old Austins however the Counties club actually hold spares for sale to members, which one can do for single make clubs.
I am indebted to Pete Simmonds for his assistance in this article (psimmons.org.uk)
TED LAY tedlay@gmail.com
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