1950s Austin A40 Somerset - the last true Austin?

Video Description

Austin A40 Somerset It’s 1952 and Austin are on the eve of the Nuffield merger, which sadly makes this the last new car Austin brought to market before that took place. It was too, I believe, the last Austin to have the seperate chassis. The A40 Somerset was the smallest car in the Austin line up and came in to replace the Devon, another marvellous car from the time where Austin made quality, dependable cars. This particular example we’re testing today is one of the 1953 Jubilee cars. These cars were painted particular colours to celebrate the new Queen, Queen Elizabeth the second, and included colours such as Balmoral Blue and Sandringham Fawn - this is the Sandringham Fawn and Graham the owner tells me it is the lesser spotted of the colours available in this limited run. There was an optional £7 sun roof on these - but this doesn’t have it fitted. The car was fitted with a 42bhp 1.2 litre engine and a 4 speed manual column change box - with synchro on the top three gears. The body styling is described as transatlantic and if you’re familiar with the Counties cars line up, you’ll recognise the styling from the larger A70 Hereford. On a test at the time, performed on low octane fuel, which was what was available due to markets of the era, the car achieved 74mph top speed and 0-60 in 28.6 seconds. In a pre-motorway era, this is not a bad performance and even in today’s world, gives you the performance you need to keep up with modern traffic without too much hassle or any upgrades. However, the 37ft turning circle does make it a considered prospect for some of the measly car parks you find attached to shopping parks nowadays. But these weren’t cars just built for a post-war Britain and in fact, they were sold across the world in two guises: as complete cars and and CKD cars - CKD an abbreviation of complete knock down - which was essentially where the car was sent as a box of bits to the nation it was being made in and rebuilt at destination. Think ‘ikea flat pack’ but actually all the bits are there and in good order and you’ve got the jist of it. This led to sales in the three years of production topping 170,000 and earlier when I told you it was the 2 millionth car off the line at Longbridge, I meant it was the 2 millionth car of all the cars made at Longbridge. The first British car to reach a million units sold in the UK was actually the Morris Minor - which funnily enough - has similar performance levels in a 1098. But we digress. It would be remiss not to mention as well, the enormous impact this car had for Nissan too, because as well as being sold as an Austin, it was badged Nissan too. This all came about, because in 1949 the ban on producing passenger cars was lifted and Nissan sprung into action. Not quite having all their ducks in a row, it was decided the most efficient way to proceed was to technology share with a known good entity who could provide CKD cars. Austin was picked because they made smaller passenger cars and had a strong presence in the American market. The first of these Austins still exists in a Japanese museum and the partnership ran from the deal being struck in 1952 until 1959. What a shame that only Nissan survives in 2025. Overall, the car was a success for Austin and the car was replaced in 1954 with the much more modern looking Austin A40 Cambridge and the Japanese factories switched to the A50 Cambridge.