A Chummy named Dorothy

Text: Prithvi Nath Tagore

Images: Deepanjan Sarkar

By 1921, the Austin Motor Company was in severe financial distress. The company had hugely expanded its facilities at Longbridge for wartime production of munitions, heavy artillery and aircraft. After the end of the Great War in 1918, Sir Herbert Austin found himself stuck with a severely underutilised workforce, a weak economy that resulted in slow sales of his large Austin 20 and a punitive horsepower tax introduced by the government at the time. Nearly bankrupt, the company went into receivership in 1921, Sir Herbert having lost his position as Managing Director of Austin and the new board now comprised of court-appointed members and creditors.

Sir Herbert needed to do something quick to salvage the situation and approached the board for producing a small, mass market car which was vociferously rejected. Undeterred, Sir Herbert engaged the services of an 18-year-old draughtsman by the name of Stanley Edge, and in a race against time, Austin and Edge, according to lore, designed what would become the Austin 7 on the billiard table in Sir Herbert’s home! The project was funded by Sir Herbert himself and then presented to the board, who reluctantly agreed to sign up on this scaled-down version of a proper car.

Although officially launched in 1922, series production started in 1923, with early model years being extremely basic and altogether tiny (they would go on to become a little larger over the years). Early models were just shy of 700cc and were quickly replaced by a 750cc unit. Taking advantage of the horsepower tax, the 7 hp (by RAC horsepower rating metrics), became an instant hit and decimated the volatile cycle car industry because of the former’s affordability and ‘real’ car status.

More than any other car built in Britain, the little 7 opened up access to a motorcar for the working classes and as Britain still had the largest empire in the world, the Austin 7 was exported in large numbers to the then colonies, including to India.

By 1928, the Austin 7 had continuously been improved over its then six-year production run and was available in several body styles, the most affordable being the tourer, a two-door soft top convertible with a full set of sidescreens. These tourer variants were nicknamed the ‘Chummy’ because of the small space in front for the driver and passenger, a rather intimate situation!

Dorothy is one such 1928 Austin Seven, specifically a type AD tourer or Chummy. 1928 was the last year of the magneto-engined Austin 7s (1929 saw the introduction of coil and distributor), and surprisingly, after nearly 100 years, still retains her original engine.

Like all 1928 Chummys, Dorothy has a lightweight aluminium body tub, doors and bonnet; only the running boards and fenders are steel. Finished in a factory shade of pale primrose with black fenders/running boards and black interiors and soft top, Dorothy is absolutely period correct. Her scuttle-mounted headlamps and radiator shell, also finished in black, are factory correct. The Chummy is the most recognisable of the Austin 7s, because it has been featured in virtually every automotive book that talks about the history of the motorcar. It also represents the original intent of Sir Herbert and Stanley Edge and is definitely the cutest!

Getting into Dorothy is not an easy task for anyone over average height or build and takes a bit of practice as I found out. Once inside, I was immediately horrified by the cramped pedal area and the upright steering wheel, though I must admit, the front seats are comfortable. And then I realised I forgot to do what every early Austin Seven owner must; turn on the petrol tap inside the engine bay, so it was out again (a more difficult proposition than getting in), opening the left side of the bonnet and turning the petrol tap on. It has a simple gravity feed set-up to the carburettor, directly from the scuttle-mounted petrol tank.

Back inside the car, the A7 is simple to start. Dorothy pre-dates an ignition key. Instead, you turn a switch on the main switch panel to ‘M’ (for magneto), fully advance the throttle on the steering hub and take the gas lever up just a bit. Thankfully, by 1928, A7s had a starter motor and Dorothy has what is referred to as the ‘Bacon slicer’ type, so named because it resembles exactly that!

The starter motor is engaged by a little spring-loaded pedal by your left foot, next to the clutch pedal (this layout would prove tricky as I was soon to find out). I let Dorothy run slightly higher than idle to warm her up just for a few minutes, before engaging the crash gearbox to first. Little Dorothy has three forward speeds, with no synchromesh on any gear so silent gearshifts are few and far between.

The engine though, considering its tiny capacity of 750cc, is reasonably smooth, the only noise coming from several pinions in the dynamo assembly mounted ahead of the engine. Non-magneto engines do not have this rattle, as the internal design of the dynamo was refined.

I then swivel out the upper half of the windscreen to its maximum to keep me cool and drop the gear lever into first while carefully lifting my foot from the clutch pedal with a little gas and Dorothy proceeds. Clutch travel is very limited and is more ‘on-off’ so one needs to get used to this to avoid jerky progress. The tiny 750cc is a rev-happy unit (for its day) and so I shift into second only after adequate speed has been gathered.

I then change the switch from ‘M’ to ‘D’, activating the dynamo circuit to charge the 6 volt battery. The revs drop immediately and Dorothy continues to progress. Dorothy is not fast by any stretch, but she feels brisk enough, with that lightweight body and small frame. I engage top gear (third) at around 20mph and the engine settles into a surprisingly smooth rhythm. On these early models, depressing the gas pedal will not really result in an increase in speed, rather, you keep the pedal down gently and the car itself gathers momentum gradually.

I’m most comfortable at 30mph on a clear stretch because two-wheel cable brakes are simply not adequate in Kolkata traffic. The foot brake operates only the rear wheel brakes, while the handbrake engages the front wheel brakes (later models switched to ‘coupled brakes’ on all four wheels). So in an emergency situation, the best way to slow down is by pressing down on the pedal and engaging the handbrake, which takes some practice!

I soon learn to keep wide gaps and slow down well in advance. The Chummy thrums away happily, covering large tracts of Kolkata. And then a challenge; a flyover!

Not knowing how Dorothy would respond, I go full throttle on level road and charge up the incline. Initially, things seem fine, but then Dorothy starts to slow down more and more. Faced with this dilemma, a crunch later, I’m into second gear and Dorothy picks up pace and charges up the incline with confidence!

The rest of the flyover is more or less level and we’re cruising happily, the occasional motorist giving a wave or a thumbs up. Happily, we cover 65kms along the length and breadth of Kolkata; even passing by the airport for Dorothy to see. A few more flyovers with steeper inclines are on our path, but I’m no longer worried because I know what to do. It is apparent though that Dorothy should not be overloaded, her Owner’s Manual clearly says that the A7 is made for two adults and two kids or three adults to ride in comfort, and that is when these cars were new. A hundred years later, it’s a good idea for just two adults to ride comfortably in an early Austin 7.

It’s now 12:30 at night and my left knee is protesting. The feeble scuttle-mounted headlamps were more to warn pedestrians of an approaching object rather than illuminating the road. There’s no place in Dorothy to keep your left leg next to the clutch pedal, for as I found out, if I moved my foot any further, I kept depressing the starter on the move (yikes). My only option was to fold my left leg as much as possible and then let the whole leg shift to the left, which too doesn’t allow much comfort because the parking brake lever is jamming my leg, right where my knee is.

Terrible ergonomics aside, Dorothy was a pleasure to drive and I steered our way back home after driving for three and a half hours, reversed into the gate and turned the magneto switch off, finally bringing the engine to a halt. No overheating, no drama. Apparently, the Austin 7 was famously overcooled, so for those who may be facing overheating issues on their 7s, you know it’s not the car, there’s a cooling problem somewhere.

Alighting presents its own challenges with the small doors on the early models. I open the door, put pressure on my legs and lift myself up while swinging out one leg after another. The moment I step on the ground, a pain shoots through my left leg and I grimace, my knee locked for hours had had enough. Hobbling around, I open the bonnet one more time and switch off the petrol tap, a most important thing to do after finishing a drive.

As I’m walking towards my house, I turn back and look at little Dorothy, a car that was not revolutionary by itself, but a car that revolutionised the British motoring industry and made owning a car possible for the first time for tens of thousands. I could only imagine what it would have been like for the average Tom, Dick or Harry to graduate from a flimsy cyclecar to a proper car, for not much more and then it struck me.

Why would the Dastan Autoworld collection, the brainchild of the late Pranlal Bhogilal, include not one but two Austin 7s, amongst all the exotica spread out along the various wings of the museum?

Simple, the Austin 7 was a special car and remains a special car, not for what it was or is, but for what it did to the global motoring industry. It was licensed by BMW and sold as the Dixi, Swallow used the 7 chassis for sporty variants (Swallow later became SS and then Jaguar), French car-maker Rosengart made it under license and Nissan used the Austin 7 for its Datsun and so on. The Austin 7 is a milestone car. In every international car book covering the history of the automobile, the Austin 7 gets more than a mention.

And that is why the late Mr. Bhogilal, the enlightened collector that he was, had to have a little Austin 7, one that he lovingly named Dorothy.