Vintage Thing No.86.1 - Austin 20 Sports

That Austin radiator may suggest motoring for the masses but this is motor car is a cut above AND came before the Austin 7

Whilst awaiting our turn at Rodney's Revenge on the 2012 Land's End Trial, your brave boys in the Candidi Provacatore team car caught up with this lovely old Austin 20 sports car. I'd seen it ascend Blue Hills 2 in the 2011 event and admired it then. This time I managed to get a better look.

Step aboard and go trialling

What I like about this car is that it shows what can be done by stripping down a heavy old vintage saloon and fitting it with a much lighter body. A ratty old Austin 20 saloon isn't that valuable and - although they do have their followers - to restore one to pristine condition would take a lot of time and money. There are plenty of very smart ones about, too.

We were pumping up tyres at the time so I forgot to ask what mods had been done but it probably doesn't stop at the twin SUs

I always thought of Austin 20s as mundane plodders and some were kitted out as commercial vehicles but this car has changed my opinion. Later 20s were flathead sixes but the engine in this example is a 3610cc (95 x 127mm) four cylinder flat head that produced 50 bhp at 2000rpm. It featured unit construction with the gearbox and a monobloc layout to the engine when many contemporary designs had crankcases that bolted to the block. Often known as the 20 Horse, the name of the Austin Twenty referred to the RAC HP rating that took bore size into consideration and formed the basis of the British taxation system. I have heard of one Austin 20 in Australia being bored out to 3.8 litres, there usually being plenty of meat in the thick walled block castings.

This is back-to-basics hot rodding and it's interesting to note that Herbert Austin was inspired by a Hudson to build the Austin 20. However, some say it nearly sank his company. It was a very well engineered motor car but too big and powerful for the years after WW1. The Austin 12 and 7 had to be invented in short order and the 7 took on the performance mantle for Austin.

Not that the 20 was ignored, though.

Felix Scriven drove a balanced and lightly tuned car known as "Sergeant Murphy" and Austin's son-in-law Arther Waite campaigned a factory racer named "Black Maria" .

The Austin 20 Sports drew upon Scrivens' competition experience and featured a high compression head, a Claudel Hobson carburettor, a high lift cam (early Twenties had roller cam followers), a close ratio gearbox, and a high ratio rear axle and one managed 105 mph at Brooklands.


However, brakes are by cable and early cars only on the back axle - a lot of people felt that front wheels brakes interfered with the steering until well into the twenties. I've heard that cable brakes need careful adjustment to work properly and I'd prefer really good brakes if the thing'll do 90 mph, which is what the non-Brooklands variety of 20 Sports managed.

Historian Jonathon Wood estimates that Austin only made 23 of the 20 Sports and survivors are correspondingly rare so this replica makes perfect sense.

Simple but effective the replica bodywork suits the chassis very well. I can remember when old wheels like that would turn up in odd places like sheds and river banks. I was only a kid, though.

Tim and Jack Kemp seemed to be enjoying quite a competitive run in the 2012 Land's End Trial with the car they built. There's plenty of ground clearance, for this car was built with the colonies in mind and that big banger four - beefier than a Model T Ford in its day - gives loads of torque.

Whatever we got up in the Allard, they seemed to get up as well. We became separated later on in the trial so it'll be interesting to read the results and see how they got on.

It'd alsp be interesting to see how it would get on in a VSCC hillclimb.