The Austin D and K series engines are a

straight-six engine The straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine bala ...

made by the British

Austin Motor Company The Austin Motor Company Limited was an English manufacturer of motor vehicles, founded in 1905 by Herbert Austin in Longbridge. In 1952 it was merged with Morris Motors Limited in the new holding company British Motor Corporation (BMC) Limi ...

between 1939 and 1968. It was developed initially for the lorry market; but was used in a number of automobiles in its later life. It was an

overhead valve An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...

non-crossflow cylinder head design. Both block and head were made out of

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

. All engines had a forged four

main bearing Main may refer to: Geography * Main River (disambiguation) **Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany * Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province *"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries ...

crankshaft.Porter (1985) p64 The engine was developed under the close watch of Austin chief

Leonard Lord Leonard Percy Lord, 1st Baron Lambury KBE (15 November 1896 – 13 September 1967) was a captain of the British motor industry. Background and education Leonard Percy Lord was born on 16 November 1896 and was the youngest child in his family ...

. The design was inspired by the

Chevrolet Stovebolt engine The Chevrolet Stovebolt engine is a straight-six engine made in two versions between 1929 and 1962 by the Chevrolet Division of General Motors. It replaced the company's inline-four as their sole engine offering from 1929 through 1954, and wa ...

which was an inline six cylinder engine that was used by

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

British subsidiary

Bedford Vehicles Bedford Vehicles, usually shortened to just Bedford, was a brand of vehicle manufactured by Vauxhall Motors, then a subsidiary of multinational corporation General Motors. Established in April 1931, Bedford Vehicles was set up to build comme ...

. In the late 1930s, when rival Austin decided to get into the 2-3 ton payload lorry market and in a crash development programme based the design on the basic architecture of this "Stove Bolt" engine. Austin however made detail improvements to the Chevrolet design. Austin's engineers added detachable shell main and connecting rod bearings and pressurized lubrication. The initial design had a

engine displacement Engine displacement is the measure of the cylinder volume swept by all of the pistons of a piston engine, excluding the combustion chambers. It is commonly used as an expression of an engine's size, and by extension as a loose indicator of the ...

of 3460cc. During the Second World War, Austin increased the bore and stroke to enlarge it into a 3991cc engine which produced 87 bhp. The larger engine was put in military trucks beginning in1940. Both engine sizes were in production after the war. When the carburettor was changed from

Zenith The zenith (, ) is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction (plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location (nadir). The zenith is the "highest" ...

to Stromberg, it produced 100 bhp. Truck engines had K designations and car engines had D designations

Applications

The engine was first used in the Austin K30 light truck and Austin K2/Y military ambulance 1939. After the war, it continued to power the later

Austin Loadstar The Austin Loadstar is a British light truck that was built by Austin during the 1950s. The 1 ton truck was available in either drop sided or flatbed models. It was the first Austin truck to be designed after World War II and was sold in the Uni ...

1-ton truck and the

4x4 Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

variant K9. Post war, it went on to power a number of cars such as the

Austin Sheerline The Austin Sheerline is a large luxury car produced by Austin in the United Kingdom from 1947 until 1954. The Sheerline was designed by Austin during the Second World War, but volume production did not begin until 1947 because of the commitment ...

and

Princess Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a subst ...

luxury vehicles,

Jensen Interceptor The Jensen Interceptor is a grand touring car which was hand-built at the Kelvin Way Factory in West Bromwich, near Birmingham in England, by Jensen Motors between 1966 and 1976. The Interceptor name had been used previously by Jensen for the ...

and

Jensen 541 The Jensen 541 is an automobile which was produced by Jensen Motors from 1954 to 1959. It was first exhibited at the London Motor Show in October 1953, and production started in 1954. The 541 used fibreglass bodywork mounted on a steel chassis ...

. The last car to have it was the 1968 DM4

Vanden Plas Vanden Plas is the name of coachbuilders who produced bodies for specialist and up-market automobile manufacturers. Latterly the name became a top-end luxury model designation for cars from subsidiaries of British Leyland and the Rover Group, ...

Princess Limousine. There were four cylinder engines based on the D-Series six cylinder engine in various capacities using common parts from 2199-2660cc petrol to 2178-2520cc diesel known initially as the 2.2-litre Austin BS1 OHV. They powered cars such as the Austin 16 hp, A70 Hampshire and Hereford, A90 Atlantic, the

Austin-Healey 100 The Austin-Healey 100 is a sports car that was built by Austin-Healey from 1953 until 1956. Based on Austin A90 Atlantic mechanicals, it was developed by Donald Healey to be produced in-house by his small Healey car company in Warwick. Heal ...

-4 and the

Austin Gipsy The Austin Gipsy is an off-road vehicle produced by Austin from 1958 to 1968. It was designed as a lower-cost replacement for the Austin Champ, to compete directly with Rover's Land Rover. Like the Land Rover, it was aimed at both the civilian ...

, a generation of commercial vans beginning with the Austin K8, as well as some models of the iconic London black taxi such as the

Austin FX3 The Austin FX3 is a taxicab that was sold in the United Kingdom by the Austin from 1948 to 1958. It was designed to comply with the Metropolitan Police Conditions of Fitness for London taxicabs, but was also used in other towns and cities in th ...

and

Austin FX4 The Austin FX4 is a hackney carriage that was produced from 1958 until 1997. It was sold by Austin from 1958 until 1982, when Carbodies, who had been producing the FX4 for Austin, took over the intellectual rights to the car. Carbodies continu ...

. At some point during Michael Edwardes reconstruction of British Leyland, the plant producing the engine was sold off to Standard Motor Products of India where it was used to power a locally-built

Standard Atlas The Standard Atlas is a light van which was produced and sold under various names between 1958 and 1980, initially in Britain and Europe, and subsequently in India. Standard Atlas, Standard Atlas Major and Standard 15/20 (1958–1968) In 1958 ...

based commercial van known as the Standard Twenty and planned for use in the Standard 2000 (a rebadged

Rover SD1 The Rover SD1 is both the code name and eventual production name given to a series of executive cars built by the Specialist Division (later the ''Jaguar-Rover-Triumph'' division) of British Leyland (BL), under the Rover marque. It was produc ...

), later being re-imported from India to be used in the refurbished Carbodies version of the Austin FX4 known as the FX4Q during the 1980s.

References

*{{cite magazine, title=The A, B - and D of Austin Engines , date=February 1985 , first=Lindsay , last=Porter , magazine=Thoroughbred and Classic Cars , url=https://chicagolandmgclub.com/history/pdf/ab+d_austin_engines_t+cc_feb85.pdf , format=pdf , via=chicagolandmgclub.com

External links

D-series Engine rebuild story
D-Series engine Automobile engines BMC engines

Applications

See also

References

External links