Austin A30

Shown at Earls Court in October 1951 as the New Austin Seven and in production from May 1952, the A30 was the first Austin built as a monocoque — the work of an aeronautical engineer, T.K. Garrett — and the first car anywhere to carry the BMC A-series engine, an 803cc four making 28bhp. The four-door came first, a two-door followed in October 1953, and the van and the Countryman arrived in August 1954. 223,264 were built before the A35 replaced it in September 1956. Around 35,000 A30s and A35s left Britain as CKD kits, and the first A30 to reach New Zealand was unpacked at Petone in the middle of 1952.

The split that catches people out is AS3 against AS4. The earliest cars, 1952 to 1953, have a completely different dashboard with a round speedometer, a single wiper on the driver’s side only, one stop-tail lamp, the fuel filler in the right rear wing and no rear valance. From AS4 in 1953 the speedo is trapezoidal, there are twin rear lamps, a rear valance appears, and the filler moves to the rear panel with the tank under a solid boot floor. About halfway through production the boot hinges changed to external chrome ones. One more thing worth knowing before you order: the brakes are Lockheed — 7in drums, hydraulic at the front and rod-operated at the rear from a single body-mounted slave cylinder, so not fully hydraulic. That is the opposite of the Cambridge cars, which are Girling, and it is the most common ordering mistake on these.