Austin Motor Company

Herbert Austin had previously built Wolseley into Britain's largest motor vehicle manufacturer before falling out with the Vickers brothers over engine design philosophy in 1905. He secured backing from steel magnate Frank Kayser and from Dunlop patent holder Harvey du Cros, obtained a disused printing works at Longbridge in November 1905, and incorporated The Austin Motor Company Limited the following month. The first Austin cars were shown to a group of motorists in late April 1906 in snowy conditions and were available as a 15/20 hp model at £500 and a 25/30 hp model at £650. Like his Wolseley cars, Austin's early products were luxury vehicles; the published customer list included Russian Grand Dukes, Spanish government officials, and members of the British nobility.

The company became a public listed company in 1914, with capital increased to £650,000. During the First World War the Longbridge factory expanded dramatically, fulfilling government contracts for aircraft, shells, heavy guns, generating sets, and 1,600 three-ton trucks, many sent to Russia. The workforce grew from around 2,500 to 22,000.

After the war Austin adopted a single-model policy based on a 3620 cc 20 hp engine, but sales could not fill the vast wartime factory and the company entered receivership in 1921. Recovery followed financial restructuring. Herbert Austin remained chairman but lost the managing director role; a committee now guided strategy. Critical appointments included finance director Ernest Payton in 1922, backed by the Midland Bank, and works director Carl Engelbach, both installed at the insistence of creditors. This triumvirate steered Austin through the interwar decades.

To grow market share Austin introduced smaller cars: the 1661 cc Twelve in 1922 and, later the same year, the Austin Seven. The Seven was an inexpensive, simple car aimed at a mass market at a time when British tax law assessed vehicles by engine displacement, making the running costs of large American cars prohibitive. The Seven became Austin's defining pre-war product. It was built under licence by the fledgling BMW of Germany as the Dixi, by Datsun in Japan, as the Bantam in the United States, and as the Rosengart in France. In 1930 it was the most produced car in Britain.

The American Austin Car Company operated as a largely independent subsidiary from 1929 to 1934 and was revived under the name American Bantam from 1937 to 1941. American Bantam submitted the first working prototype for what became the Willys MB Jeep, incorporating Austin nose and wing parts, though production was subsequently handed to Willys and Ford.

With the Seven's success, Austin weathered the Great Depression and remained profitable throughout the 1930s, progressively updating its range with all-steel bodies, Girling brakes, and synchromesh gearboxes. All engines retained side-valve configuration throughout this period. Ernest Payton became chairman in 1941 on the death of Lord Austin, and Leonard Lord joined the board in 1938, becoming chairman in 1946.

In 1932 Datsun built cars infringing Austin patents. From 1934 Datsun began constructing Austin Sevens under licence, an arrangement that became Austin's most successful overseas licensing operation and contributed to the beginning of Datsun's international expansion. In 1952 Austin entered a new agreement with Nissan for assembly of 2,000 imported Austins from knock-down kits to be sold in Japan under the Austin name, with a requirement that Nissan localise all parts within three years. Nissan met that target. The agreement also gave Nissan rights to Austin patents, which it used in developing its own engines for the Datsun range. Between 1953 and 1959 Nissan produced 20,855 Austins.

During the Second World War Austin continued car production alongside manufacturing trucks and aircraft, including Short Stirling and Avro Lancaster bombers. The post-war car range was announced in 1944 and production began in 1945. The immediate range was broadly similar to late 1930s models but introduced the 16 hp, notable for having Austin's first overhead valve engine.

In 1952 Austin merged ownership with Morris Motors to create The British Motor Corporation Limited, with Leonard Lord in charge. William Morris served as first BMC chairman but soon retired. Lord, who had famously left Morris declaring he would take Cowley apart brick by brick, ensured Austin dominated the new combine; its more recently designed overhead-valve engines were adopted across most of the range. The same year Austin concluded a deal with Donald Healey, creating the Austin-Healey marque and a range of sports cars.

The threat to fuel supplies from the 1956 Suez Crisis prompted Leonard Lord to commission Alec Issigonis — who had worked at Morris from 1936 to 1952 — to design a small economical car. The result was the Mini, launched in 1959 as the Austin Seven before the Morris Mini Minor name gained public favour; the Austin version was renamed Mini to follow suit. In 1970 British Leyland dropped separate Austin and Morris branding for the Mini entirely.

The transverse-engine, front-wheel-drive layout pioneered in the Mini was applied to larger cars: the 1100 of 1963, the 1800 of 1964, and the Maxi of 1969, establishing BMC as the first British manufacturer to move comprehensively into front-wheel drive. By contrast, Ford did not launch its first front-drive model in Britain until 1976 and Vauxhall's equivalent arrived in 1979.

The exception was the Austin 3-litre of 1968, a rear-wheel-drive large car sharing the central section of the 1800 body. It was a commercial failure, with fewer than 10,000 examples built.

The 1973 Allegro replaced the 1100/1300 range. It attracted criticism for its bulbous styling — earning the nickname "Flying Pig" — and for indifferent build quality and reliability, though it remained a volume seller in Britain. The 18/22 series launched in 1975 as an Austin, Morris, and Wolseley variant but was quickly rechristened the Princess and treated as a standalone marque under the Austin Morris division of British Leyland, which had been effectively nationalised in 1975. An upgraded version became the Austin Ambassador in 1981, too late to make a significant commercial impact.

The Austin Metro, launched in October 1980, was positioned as the salvation of both Austin and the wider BL group. Twenty-one years after the Mini, it gave the company a modern supermini to compete with the Ford Fiesta, Vauxhall Nova, Volkswagen Polo, and Renault 5. It was an immediate commercial success and one of the most popular British cars of the 1980s, receiving a facelift in October 1984 and a five-door variant. It was designed as a Mini replacement but the Mini outlasted it.

In 1982 most of BL's car division was rebranded as Austin Rover Group, with Austin positioned as the mainstream and budget marque alongside Rover's more upmarket models. The MG badge was revived for sporty derivatives, beginning with the MG Metro 1300. Morris and Triumph were axed in 1984. The Maestro followed in March 1983 as a spacious five-door hatchback replacing the Allegro and Maxi, and the Montego saloon arrived in April 1984, praised for interior space and comfort despite early build-quality difficulties. Austin Rover's holding company BL plc became Rover Group plc in 1986 and was privatised through a sale to British Aerospace in 1988.

The Austin name was phased out in 1988 as Rover Group moved upmarket. Remaining Austin-badged cars continued in production without the Austin name; a Montego of this era carried bonnet and boot badges reading simply "Montego" with no marque name.

The rights to the Austin name passed through British Aerospace, then BMW when it acquired Rover Group, and were subsequently sold to MG Rover. Following MG Rover's collapse in 2005, Nanjing Automobile Group acquired Austin's name and the historic Longbridge assembly plant. At the Nanjing International Exhibition in May 2006, Nanjing indicated it might use the Austin name on revived models for the Chinese market. Nanjing later merged with SAIC Motor, which currently holds the trademark.

In 2012 a new Austin Motor Company was registered in Britain by former Longbridge worker Steve Morgan, who stated he had no intention to trade but wished to preserve the name's memory; the company was dissolved in 2014. A separate registration in 2015 by engineer John Stubbs led to the announcement of the Austin Arrow electric vehicle prototype by 2021, with a production line subsequently established by MJP Motors in Rajkot, India, and production reported to have commenced in October 2023. Whether these revival efforts will result in a commercially significant marque remains unresolved.