While Austin was a popular British automobile, the name was only vaguely known in North America. The Austin Automobile Co. of Grand Rapids, Michigan, made large American Austins from 1901 to 1921, and the American Austin Car Co. (later the American Bantam Car Co.) built tiny Americanized English Austin Sevens in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the 1930s.
The name resurfaced after the Second World War, when foreign cars began entering the North American market. The English Austin soon became one of the most popular.
Some pre-war designed Austins came in, but the post-war Austin A40 which came as the Dorset (two聽door) and Devon (four door) sedan was introduced in 1947 as a 1948 model.
It was modern in design, except for its hydromechanical brakes 鈥� hydraulics front and mechanical rear 鈥� that were soon changed to full hydraulic.
A 1.2-litre, 40-horsepower, four-cylinder, overhead valve engine drove the rear wheels through a four-speed manual transmission.
Performance was modest. And with an overall length of just 3,886聽millimetres (153 inches), the 鈥淏aby Austin鈥� looked decidedly small to North American eyes.
In spite of its diminutive size, the A40 enjoyed enough North American sales success in the late 1940s to prompt Austin Motor Co. to start planning an assembly plant in Hamilton.
However, this was abandoned when sales tapered off with the satisfaction of the pent-up post-war demand for new cars.
Austin also offered the Austin A90 Atlantic sports sedan and convertible that arrived in 1949. Although designed for the North American market, it had only limited sales success. Austin bravely decided to try again.
This time it was the Austin A40 Sports, built in collaboration with Jensen Motors of West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England.
Before the Second World War, versatile coachbuilder Jensen had produced cars based on American chassis and engines from Ford, Nash and Lincoln.
After the war, with these components no longer available, Jensen contracted with Austin for its 4.0-litre, overhead-valve six that Austin used in its large Sheerline sedan.
Jensen called their Austin powered model the Four-Litre.
This led to another joint venture in which Austin supplied Jensen with their A70 sedan chassis and engines for use in the new Jensen Interceptor model.
In return for this, Austin asked Jensen to build its new Austin A40 Sports, to which Jensen happily agreed.
The A40 Sports that evolved was a two-door, four-passenger, body-on-frame convertible based on A40 sedan components. The mostly aluminum body was designed by Jensen and mounted on the A40 chassis.
It made its debut in prototype form at the 1949聽London Motor Show and, not surprisingly, bore a remarkable family resemblance to the first-generation Jensen Interceptor.
Like the Interceptor, the A40 Sports had a horizontal bar grille and full envelope body with clean, conservative and attractive lines. It had wind-up windows and was meant as a sporty touring car, not a sports car.
Under the hood, the A40 engine was modified by replacing the single Zenith carburetor with twin SUs, which raised the horsepower to 46 from 40. The A40 chassis was strengthening in the centre section, and like the sedan its suspension was independent via coil-springs-and-A-arms in front, and leaf springs with a solid axle at the rear. It had a four-speed manual transmission and full hydraulic brakes.
Production didn鈥檛 get under way until early in 1951, and the A40 Sports began landing in North America later that year.
With 46 horsepower pushing more than 953 kilograms (2,100 pounds), A40 Sports performance was modest.
A 1951 English test by The Motor reported a zero to 97 km/h (60 mph) time of 25.6 seconds, compared with the 29.4 that Road & Track (8/51) got with the A40 sedan.
Top speed was 125 km/h (77.8 mph), compared with the sedan鈥檚 118 (73).
With their low-axle ratios, both cars had to strain to maintain the 97 to 105 km/h (60 to 65 mph) cruising speed that was not uncommon in North America.
To gain some publicity, an A40 Sports was taken on an around-the-world record run by Austin public relations man Alan Hess and some assistants.
It successfully completed this in 21 days, covering approximately 16,000 kilometres of road travel.
Alas, in spite of its record-breaking, smart lines, four passenger accommodation and passable performance, the A40 Sports found limited market acceptance.
By the time production ceased in 1953, only about 4,000 had been built, most of which were exported.
Austin had laid another egg in the sporty car market. The A40 Sports, like the A90 Atlantic, just didn鈥檛 catch on.
This was probably due to a combination of factors: modest performance, a fairly high price that was in the $2,200 range, and the fact that it wasn鈥檛 a sports car.
