Austin 7 at the Indy 500

[Tony Griffiths]

An Austin 7 driven by a three-times Indy 500 winner at the Speedway. Hold onto your hats! https://youtu.be/NcP4O18Z0ko
...and the advertisement

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Love the "Special De-Lux" dashboard....rather like Motor Sport's road test of a Cadillac in the 1960s; they described dash as being more suitable for a Vauxhall Viva.

[Duncan Grimmond]

Lovely car, pity that all the wheel discs are so badly dented! I know I'm being picky but details like that are not so difficult to attend to when you've done such a lovely job on the rest of the car....

[Bob Culver]

It is the sort of damage which occurs in museums. I have noticed in our Museum of Transport many removable fittings have disappeared off vehicles and everything has been fiddled with. If one of a group finds thay can dent the hubcap they all try.
it hugely annoys me to see old items available for the public to touch. At the Kensington Science museum I think it is Maudsleys lathe which is accessible. Parts can be remade but it is not the same. In the war museum the famous WW1 mons field gun a toy for children. And the ex NZ LRDG truck subject to more wear and tear than decades in the libyan desert.

[Mike Costigan]

Someone has just posted a link to the opening scenes from the 1937 film, Hollywood Hotel, featuring ... a whole load of imported British Opals! (... and one American Austin Roadster)


  1937 Hollywood Hotel.JPG (Size: 91.95 KB / Downloads: 105)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkPkHv8KnBs

[Archivist]

I love the term 'deaccessioned'. One I shall clearly have to remember...

[Tony Griffiths]

Amazing. Why not just use the American versions? Did they import the UK-made cars especially? What a story must be behind this. Mind you, having had a little experience with film companies they often appear to have huge budgets and spend very freely indeed; on one occasion Pinewood wanted to send a taxi to collect £450 worth of belting for a 4-second pan of a vintage machine shop that had to be filmed the next day.

[Mike Costigan]

The clue is probably in the date of the film: 1937. Presumably that means most of the filming was done in 1936, at which time the production of American Austins had long ceased, and the new Bantam was not put into production until mid-1937, so there were probably no new AAs available.

[Tony Griffiths]

The clue is probably in the date of the film: 1937. Presumably that means most of the filming was done in 1936, at which time the production of American Austins had long ceased, and the new Bantam was not put into production until mid-1937, so there were probably no new AAs available.

Good thinking. As all appear to be left-hand drive, they must have been specially built or redirected from, or perhaps purchased in Canada where some left-hand drive Rubies are known.....?