The Austin A30 is a

small family car The C-segment is the 3rd category of the European segments for passenger cars and is described as "medium cars". It is equivalent to the Euro NCAP "small family car" size class, and the compact car category in the United States. In 2024, the C-s ...

produced by

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

from May 1952 to September 1956. It was launched at the 1951 Earls Court Motor Show as the "''New'' Austin Seven" and was Austin's competitor with the

Morris Minor The Morris Minor is an economy car produced by British marque Morris Motors between 1948 and 1971. It made its debut at the Earls Court Motor Show, London, in October 1948. Designed under the leadership of Alec Issigonis, more than 1.6 ...

. At launch, the car cost £507 (equivalent to £15,793.36 in 2019) undercutting the Minor by £62.

Styling

Holden "Bob" Koto, from the

Raymond Loewy Raymond Loewy ( , ; November 5, 1893 – July 14, 1986) was a French-born American industrial designer who achieved fame for the magnitude of his design efforts across a variety of industries. He was recognized for this by ''Time'' magazi ...

design studios, created the first clay models for the A30. Austin then had its Head of Styling, Dick Burzi, revise the design, partly to reduce cost.

Features

The body structure was designed by T.K. Garrett, who had been an aeronautical engineer before joining Austin. It was of fully stressed

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

chassis-less construction, which made it lighter and stiffer than most contemporary vehicles, the first Austin to be made in this way. Inside there were individual seats at the front and a bench at the rear covered in

PVC Polyvinyl chloride (alternatively: poly(vinyl chloride), colloquial: vinyl or polyvinyl; abbreviated: PVC) is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic polymer of plastic (after polyethylene and polypropylene). About 40 million tons o ...

with an option of leather facings on the seats. Evidence of economy was seen in the original AS3 version only having a single windscreen wiper, central combined stop/tail/numberplate lamp and a sun visor in front of the driver only. A passenger-side wiper and sun visor, and a heater were available as optional extras. The AS3 was also different to later models with a round speedometer and side mounted fuel filler neck. A smaller grille was fitted and an Austin winged badge mounted just above. Originally only offered as a 4-door saloon, 2-door variants were introduced in late 1953, and in 1954 a van and van-based "Countryman" estate were made available. These later A30 had the trapezoidal speedo and dual brake/side lights. The fuel filler neck also moved to the rear panel as in the later A35 models. Despite having a smaller loading capacity than the equivalent BMC O-type Minor based vans (60 cu ft / 1.70 m³ as opposed to 76 cu ft / 2.15 m³) the Austin van offered the same payload. Being slightly lighter and stiffer, it was favoured by businessmen, and saw long service for many. One prototype Sports Tourer was built but the vehicle was never put into production. That prototype is on display at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon in the UK. The A30 was replaced by the

Austin A35 The Austin A35 is a small family car that was sold by Austin Motor Company, Austin from 1956 until 1968. About 280,897 A35s of all types were produced. Design Introduced in 1956, it replaced the highly successful Austin A30. The name reflecte ...

in 1956, by which time 223,264 A30s had been built. The A30 has a smaller rear window than the A35, and

trafficators Trafficators are Semaphore (disambiguation), semaphore signals which, when operated, protrude from the bodywork of a motor vehicle to indicate its intention to turn in the direction indicated by the pointing signal. Trafficators are often locate ...

instead of modern indicators, which swung out from the B pillar when operated by a knob mounted on the centre of the dashboard. The car, along with the larger-engined (and hence faster) A35, was quite successful in 1950s saloon car racing, and some still appear in historic events.

Performance

The car's newly designed A-Series

straight-4 A straight-four engine (also referred to as an inline-four engine) is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. The majority of automotive four-cylinder engines use a straight-four layout ( ...

engine was state of the art for the time and returned an average fuel consumption of 42 mpg / under 7L/100 km. With spirited driving the A30 was able to attain a top speed of (factory quoted). In its road test ''

The Motor ''The Motor'' (later, just ''Motor'') was a British weekly car magazine founded on 28 January 1903 and published by Temple Press. It was initially launched as ''Motorcycling and Motoring'' in 1902 before the title was shortened. From the 14 ...

'' magazine achieved a top speed of and a 0–60 mph time of 42.3 seconds. Braking was effected by a hybrid system, with Lockheed fully hydraulic drum brakes at the front and a body-mounted single cylinder operating rods to the rear wheels, which despite being heavily criticised as archaic and old-fashioned, were reported to be quite acceptable. The rod system provided good handbrake efficiency and was applied by a lever in an unorthodox position to the right of the driver's seat (Right hand drive vehicles). Bumps were handled by independent coil springs at the front end and beam axle/semi-elliptic leaf springs at the back. A car tested by ''

'' magazine in 1952 had a top speed of and could accelerate from 0– in 29 seconds. A fuel consumption of was recorded. The test car cost £553 including taxes. The optional radio was an extra £43 and the heater £9. Performance data need to be seen in the context of fuel availability. Early in the Second World War "branded fuel" disappeared from sale in the UK, and the nationally available fuel available at the beginning of 1952 had an octane rating of just 70, which enforced relatively low compression ratios: this reduced the performance available from all cars, especially small ones. In 1952 branded fuels returned to the forecourts, available octane ratings began to increase, and compression ratios were progressively improved along with the performance figures of cars such as the Austin A30 and its A35 successor.

Australian production

The A30 was produced in Australia by the Austin Motor Company (Australia) Pty Ltd from 1952 to 1954 and by its successor, the

British Motor Corporation (Australia) Pty Ltd British Motor Corporation (Australia) was a motor manufacturing company formed in Australia in 1954 by the merger of the Austin Motor Company (Australia) and Nuffield (Australia). This followed the merger in 1952 of the Austin Motor Company and ...

from 1954 to 1956.

Engine

* 803 cc BMC A-Series engine inline 4. * 58 mm bore x 76 mm stroke * pushrod-operated overhead valves *

compression ratio The compression ratio is the ratio between the maximum and minimum volume during the compression stage of the power cycle in a piston or Wankel engine. A fundamental specification for such engines, it can be measured in two different ways. Th ...

7.2:1 * single Zenith 26JS or 26VME carburettor * 28 bhp (21 kW) at 4400 rpm * 40 lbf·ft (54 Nm) at 2200 rpm

New Austin Seven and Austin A30 Seven

Early sales literature used the names New Austin Seven and Austin A30 Seven.Austin A30 Seven 1951–56, storm.oldcarmanualproject.com
Retrieved 27 June 2016

References

External links

Austin A30/A35 Owners' Club

The Austin A30 Site. A30 photographs, free screensaver, parts noticeboard+

Austin Memories
��History of Austin and Longbridge
Photo of A30 in New Zealand, 1964
{{British Motor Corporation cars, 1952-1966 A30 1950s cars Cars introduced in 1951 Cars of Australia Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Sedans Cars discontinued in 1956 Saloons Station wagons Vans