CarBrandLogos archive · Austin · 1906

AustinAustin 25/30

Herbert Austin's first car under his own name, built in a disused printing works.

Photo: Mark Brown from Hampton, New Brunswick, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Austin history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Austin 25/30, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Herbert Austin left Wolseley in 1905 after falling out with the board over the direction of its cars, took an empty printing works at Longbridge on the edge of Birmingham, and set about building something under his own name. The result was a large, expensive machine of the type established makers were selling: a 5,182 cc four-cylinder engine with T-head valve arrangement and a four-speed gearbox, sold as a chassis for a coachbuilder to body.

Austin Grand Prix - Flickr - exfordy · Brian Snelson from Hockley, Essex, England · CC BY 2.0

Design and engineering

Very few were made in 1906 and 1907 before the larger 40 hp took over, and the model is a footnote in its own right. What it started is not. Longbridge went on building cars for the best part of a century, and Austin's company would eventually put more Britons on the road than any other.

Austin 25-30 chassis side view · Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain

At a glance