The Inspiration Car

In 1921 the Austin Car Company faced bankruptcy and Sir Herbert Austin believed that the future lay with a small low-cost car to compete with the various low-cost motorcycle and sidecar combinations. He worked on this as a ‘private venture’ at his home with a ‘borrowed’ young Stanley Edge from the design office.  Before the little car was even announced to the public, Austin’s works driver (Louis Kings) drove a 696cc prototype Austin 7 up Shelsley Walsh in 89.8 sec, which really impressed the crowds.

Austin 7s and Austin 7 specials were very successful in motorsport throughout the 1920s, both at home and on the Continent.  But in 1930, MG (owned by Austin’s main competitor, William Morris), announced a lightweight sports car with a sophisticated 850cc overhead camshaft engine. After being sleeved down to 750cc the MGs quickly outpaced the Austin's and started taking all the glory.

Not to be outdone, Sir Herbert hired talented engineer Murray Jamieson to design a new racing car from the ground up, in fact the only thing common with the original production Austin 7 was the engine capacity – 750 cc. The result was the tiny Austin 7 Twin Cam, which was a masterpiece of precision engineering and in 1936 Austin produced a publicity film of its development called “The Pace that Thrills”. The Austin 7 Twin Cam was powered by a supercharged all alloy engine with gear-driven twin camshafts.  Running on Methanol fuel it produced 116 BHP and revved to 12,000 RPM. Subsequently, it dominated its Class and often embarrassed the big boys. Once again Austin was sweeping the board both at home and abroad.