If they were so good, where are they all now?

[Ian Williams]

After working with Austin 7's you would find a Morris 8 a badly made piece of non mentionable. They don't perform that well compared to good seven either, certainly not on any run I have been on where the local Morris and Austin clubs combined!

[Bob Culver]

I can proffer several reasons but would get me excommunicated. 
A noticeable sag in the bonnet line was often apparent later. The heavy engine did not lend itself to amateur attention.
The cars will hold 50 mph which is a struggle for Sevens (and alarming). Handles as a real car whereas Sevens handle as Sevens. In the 1940s and before revving hell out of cars was commonplace, my father used to reckon he would often slowly catch up with 8s on 3rd gear main road inclines. The ride is very pitchy or maybe the ones I travelled in had empty sas; the Series E was a notable improvemnt and a better buy then an Austin 8.
Some years ago in the UK Jowett mag an extract from a Morris mag was published. The author bemoaned the tyranny post war of being endlessly held up in holiday traffic by overloaded Sevens plugging along at speeds vastly slower than his relatively easy 50 mph. All claim the Morris was superior to the Model Y Ford, its inspiration.  Both the Ford and Morris lack the frail axle and steering of the heavier Sevens.

[Colin Morgan]

Whilst Honest John 'How Many Survived?' page says over 1000 1930s Sevens are taxed, it lists only one 1930s Morris 8??? So this can't be right. Looking at the on-line Morris Register, there seem to be 763 Series 1 8HP cars listed. If only about 1 in 5 is taxed, that would be around 150 Morris 8s on the road?

[Erich]

I would guess, akin to what others have said, there are many reasons so many Sevens have survived. One thing appears to be the simplicity of the Seven, as well as the sound engineering principles with which it was designed and manufactured. We have a lot of Teslas here in the PNW of the US. I have not seen one of the first little roadster versions in years.

Erich in Mukilteo

[Reckless Rat]

Never mind the Teslas, what happened to all those dinky little Honda S800s. I always wanted one of those.

[Bob Culver]

A model which should be more comparable with the Seven is the original ohc Minor and the earlier 8. I have nver met anyone with experience of both to compare, or read any reports. Quite a few of the sv models were on the road when I was teengaer, but the ohc  cars were rare. Many were fabric bodied which did not make for long life.

[Bruce Nicholls]

So according to Honest John, virtually all the cars known to the DVLA are going to Moreton?

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Or most of the known surviving cars on the chassis register aren't registered at DVLA?

[Mike Costigan]

I expect sites like Honest John and How Many Left are entirely dependent on the accuracy of the DVLA records, which is woeful. Some Sevens will  be recorded as 'Make: Austin', 'Model: Seven', and these will be the ones identified, but many are recorded as 'Make: Austin Seven', in which case they will not be identified as an Austin make, or Seven model.

Edit: I have just checked some of the Sevens I have owned in the past; under 'Make' six are recorded as Austin, four are Austin Seven, two are Austin 7, and one is Austin Ruby, so more than 50% of them will not be identified by a search for 'Make: Austin, Model: Seven'!

[David Stepney]

Seeing Mike's post spurred me into looking at the documentation for my own car. The continuation RF60 in my possession describes my car as:- Private; Austin; Blue/Black; Saloon; Petrol.
My V5C describes the car as:- B.1(Make) Austin. D2 and 3 (Type and Variant) are blank. D.5 (Body type) Saloon. P.1 (Cylinder Capacity) 748cc P.3 (Type of Fuel) Petrol, and D.4 (Wheelplan) 2 axle rigid, R. (Colour) Blue/Black.

So my car wouldn't show up as a surviving Austin Seven either!

[Colin Morgan]

Looking at the DVLA dataset of UK registered vehicles - all 20MB of it - which can be downloaded (VEH0220 [2016]), this gives:

Austins Registered by DVLA            500-750cc           750-1000cc

AUSTIN SEVEN Petrol                        1144                    889

AUSTIN MISSING Petrol                     1774                  3582

Splitting the data at 750cc does not help, as Sevens will end up in both categories?  Also included will be A30 Sevens and Mini Sevens as there is no distinction in the data.  Many other types of Austin will be included in the MISSING category so an unknown proportion of these are Sevens.  There is no '7' as a number category in the dataset, nor a 'Ruby' category, nor any further detail - so Sevens are presumably in 'Seven', or 'MISSING' or missing off the data?

This data puts the total number of Sevens registered as being anywhere between 1000-2000 and up to about 6000 - so this isn't a lot of use to determine roadworthy Seven numbers?  And that is without counting random recording errors, which are also dotted through the data - such as, for example, four 'Sevens' in the 1200-1300cc category.   

So perhaps a better guess is to take about twice as many survivors as are on the Chassis Register - say 20,000 in total - given that some owners specifically do not want their cars listed, and unlisted cars often turn up for sale?  If about 20% of surviving chassis are actually registered for the road, perhaps up to 4000 Austin Sevens are currently registered for the road?  (The proportion of cars on the road could be checked by taking a sample from the register and seeing what proportion are currently registered.)