Can anyone help trace the history of this special? APP 547

[Chris71]

Hello to everyone. I'm attempting to track down the history of my father's Austin Seven Special, registration APP 547. Nick Salmon from the 750 Motor Club recommended this forum and I was wondering if anyone here could help?

The car has been a pile of bits since some time in the 1960s. The collection of parts is mechanically complete, but we know very little about the body. Twenty-odd years ago I started building a Cambridge-style body for a school project, but that swiftly fell by the wayside and not a great deal has happened since. I'm hoping to resurrect the project and I'd really like to stay true to the car's form when it was first converted into a Special.

My father bought the car as a rolling chassis. He was shown a photo of it racing - he thinks at Brands Hatch - but only has a vague recollection of its backstory and what it looked like. He believes it was raced by two brothers, or possibly two friends, who probably lived in the North London area. As far as he can remember, it had an upright radiator (as opposed to a cigar-shaped nose like a Speedex or a Hamblin) but it does sound like it was a fifties '750 Motor Club Special' rather than a pre-war sports model. It has independent front suspension (thought to be Speedex) and 15-inch wheels. I'm pretty sure he said it has an uprated (possibly Cambridge) cylinder head too.

Some of this information may be incorrect, but it's our best description of the car. What we do have is the registration details and a list of owners:

Registration: APP 547
First registered: 1st June 1934
Chassis number: 195582

Known owners and approximate dates, based on log book:
Henry Maurice Hansford (possibly Mansford?) - 1955
Michael David Lowen - 1956 (appears again in 1960 for an address change, he seems to have owned it for quite a while)
Graham Bouchier-Hignett - 1963 (I think, stamp is faded)

I realise that's not a lot to go on, but we'd really like to find some information on the car or some photos that we could use as the basis of the rebuild. 

Can anyone help or point us in the direction of someone who might be able to?

Many thanks,

Chris

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Just a thought. Is there any way to trace what body would originally have gone on that chassis number? Having said that it was a post-war Special, I suppose it could have been a Nippy or a 65 with the more recent bits bolted on?

[JonE]

Welcome - Can you post photos of the rear crossmember ends, and that may give a clue to its former...

Pictures needed generally!! There is a Super Accessories book digitised on the Speedex FB group that has details of the other front suspension it could be - Bowden.

It's on the register. Ex Bristol?

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Hold on - the logbook will confirm whether saloon, tourer or sports, surely.
At that date and if a saloon it is probably an RP if its highframe, or do Rubys start that early...hmm... if a low frame.

[David Stepney]

According to Wyatt, the first Ruby chassis was numbered 198596, so your chassis would appear to be one of the very last RP saloons.

[Ivor Hawkins]

Strangely my RP saloon is chassis number 197131 but was registered on the 29th June 1934 APP 729

[JonE]

The whole Bucks series was used between March and July.

Still no reply as whether its a saloon anyway...

[Chris71]

Thanks for the responses.

From memory, the logbook describes it as Sports, but that logbook only goes back to 1955, so it may have been re-issued once it was already a special.

We have pretty much the full set of bits for the rolling chassis, but it's completely disassembled. At the moment, the A-frame is up against the wall in my dad's workshop. But he's in self-isolation due to the virus and there's a couple of tonnes of assorted junk I'd need to move to get to it, so I don't have any photos, I'm afraid.

Alas, the entry on the Austin Seven Specials Register came from my father. We joined the Bristol Austin Seven Club in the late '90s the first time I tried to rebuild the car, but it lived in London (we think) while it was actually in one piece.

I've got a vague feeling we looked at the Bowden suspension before identifying it as Speedex, but definitely worth double-checking. Hopefully before too long I'll be able to get to the car and inspect it properly.

[Chris71]

Bit of an update. The logbook apparently lists the original body style as a 'tourer'. Does that fit in with the RP saloon-era chassis number?

Also, we have the engine number: M196838 

And it's thought that the two friends (or brothers) who raced the car were in fact the last two names on the logbook: Michael Lowen and Graham Bouchier-Hignett.

["Slack Alice" Simon]

My '28 special is down as a "Tourer" - I think this was maybe the word they used when registering the change of body to a special, in the '50's.

I think my car was a saloon - but the only evidence I have is that the headlamp brackets on the scuttle are from a saloon, so that assumption is on weak grounds.

[ChrisPickering]

This car came up in conversation earlier, so I thought I'd give the thread a 'bump' just in case.

(It was me who put up the original thread - turns out I have two usernames, so mods are free to delete the old one!)

For the time being, I've given up on the idea of rebuilding APP 547 and bought my own Ulster replica. But I'm still searching for some evidence of what the car was - if I could find that I'd be far more tempted to try and rebuild it in its original (well, 1950s) specification.

[JonE]

you still haven't posted any pics of the chassis crossmember ends and the brake cable holder brackets, presuming it has some. Or the rear torque tube mount... these are the only things that may give you more info on what the original chassis was holding.