Lot 616: 1927 Austin Seven Chummy 2-Door Tourer

Designed by 18 years old draughtsman Stanley Edge at Herbert Austin’s Lickey Grange home, the Austin 7 employed an A-frame chassis with transverse-leaf front spring and quarter-elliptics at the rear powered by water-cooled four-cylinder engine. Really new, at the time, was the 4-wheel braking system, the rear brakes operated by pedal, the fronts by hand-lever. From the spring of 1923, and for the rest of this iconic model’s seventeen years life, the original 696cc capacity was increased to 747cc and an electric starter was added in 1924. In addition to the original Tourer bodywork, both factory-built Saloon in metal and fabric-bodied Saloon version by Gordon England were introduced in 1926 and an open 2-Seater joined the range in 1927.
This 4-Seater Chummy was manufactured at Austin’s Longbridge factory 15 July 1927. During what might have been a final journey to a breaker’s yard in the 1950s, Chassis number A4/5427 was saved by the Sharpe brothers, the Essex collectors persuading the driver of the scrap lorry to swop it for a heavier crash write-off and happily preserving it for the next fifty years in their Ramsgate Museum based Collection from which it was directly acquired.
While still complete and largely original on acquisition, sensitively applied refurbishment carried out during the last year has included repainting the bodywork in Kingfisher Blue, trimming the seats in black leather, attention to the wiring, fitting a new Serck radiator, rebuilding the magneto and renewing carpets, hood, tyres and inner tubes. Apart from a ‘Continuation Logbook’ from 1937 and current V5, both tax disc and MOT are valid until 2008.
Apart from being capable of 52mph and 43mpg, a characterful Chummy, like this, should be practical to own, has good A7 spares and model expertise availability, and will take up a minimum of space in the motor house.