An early publicity shot I'd not seen before

[Steve kay]

I am puzzled by the "Britain from Above" image being on the forum if I use my laptop, but is absent when I go to the forum using my ipad. Does that mean that many folk have not seen the air photo?

[Ivor Hawkins]

I’m viewing them clearly on my iPad, it could be your browser settings…

[LesGammon]

If you drive past the traffic island outside the Austin Works, in the direction of the Lickey Hills and Rednal, the Test Hill was just before the GOB (General Office Block) on the left hand side. The work's main Fire Station was at the bottom of the hill and the hill was short and steep leading up to the Flying Ground. We drove up it in 1972 and the A7,s were lined up along the dual carriageway at the top.
Ex-Austin Apprentice

[Charles P]

If you drive past the traffic island outside the Austin Works, in the direction of the Lickey Hills and Rednal, the Test Hill was just before the GOB (General Office Block) on the left hand side. The work's main Fire Station was at the bottom of the hill and the hill was short and steep leading up to the Flying Ground. We drove up it in 1972 and the A7,s were lined up along the dual carriageway at the top.
Ex-Austin Apprentice

Hedd Wyn Jones messaged me because whilst he can read the forum, he can't post due to registration problems on the A7F site.

He sent this photo saying that from his distant time as a student in Birmingham he agrees with Les that the old test hill is the access road between Windsor Avenue and Chadwick Close

[Ivor Hawkins]

I wondered where Hedd had disappeared to!

[Tony Griffiths]

Here's a 3D image of the two roads and some shots from the 1971 Golden Jubilee film.
Would the short test hill have run up the bank that's now a tall concrete wall (Point A) - or the slope behind it (Point B)? Click the picture to get a clearer view.
Could this be it? Taking the steepest path shown in the last picture, the height gain to the first marker (30 metres) and second (40 metres) is 14 metres, with a slope of 1 to 2.85. After that, to the last (80 metres) marker, the land only rises a further 1 metre. That's a very short but steep rise but, could it be the other longer slope at B, or somewhere else?
Is this the test hill? 1972 Golden Jubilee film at 07.35  Scroll down to find at https://archive.a7ca.org/collections/films/
What's the real answer?
The pictures are not shown in the correct sequence. Despite putting them in the right order several times, the computer keeps saying, "No."

[Charles P]

Tell Hedd to register again using a new password. The password reset system does not work and cannot (apparently) be fixed. I 'lost' mine for a while and could only get on by using a browser that had stored it. Then I remembered that "Chrome" stores passwords and, by logging on to that, it's possible to recover them.

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He tells me that he's tried many ways and given up, and he's no technophobe.
If he turns up then clearly he's found a way in, otherwise he, like many others, is interactive on Facebook

c

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Those photos are superb, Tony!

[john williams]

Did they have "Photoshop" in 1923? The woman in the black and white photograph looks identical to the one in the coloured photograph. I also remember driving over the test hill. I have photographs, coloured and black and white, of the Austin Sevens lined up outside the Longbridge Gates.

[Mike Costigan]

Well spotted, John, I had not noticed the similarity between the b&w photo and the colour advert. The latter is an artist's rendition and it's entirely possible he based his work on the original photo.