Austin 4 HP
Austin Seven Baby
Car : Austin Seven Baby
Year : 1924
Engine : 4 cylinders in line
Bore and stroke :56×76.2 mm
Cylinder capacity : 750 cc
Gears : 3 forward
Brake horse power : 10.5
Maximum speed : 52 mph
Wheelbase : 6 ft 3 ins (1.90 m)
Suspension : front: semi- elliptic leaf- springs; back: ¼elliptic leaf- springs

Car : Austin 4 HP
Year : 1911
Engine : Single cylinder
Bore and stroke :105×127 mm
Cylinder capacity : 1100 cc
Gears : 4 forward
Brake horse power : 7
Maximum speed : 32 mph
Wheelbase : 6 ft 0 ins (1.82 m)
Suspension : front: semi- elliptic leaf- springs; back: elliptic leaf- springs
Herbert Austin founded the company that bears his name in 1906, after being director-general of Wolseley. The firm started with a sturdy and reliable model that was very simple in its general conception. The 15 HP came into production in 1908. It was typical of the early period, and as often happened at that time, various parts, eapecially the gearbox and ignition, were quickly modified. Thus, by 1922 a small, truly popular car had evolved. In the meantime, Herbert Austin had been knighted for his contribution to the war effort. The Great War had in fact been both favorable and unfavorable to Austin: on the one hand a war machine had had to be built; on the other, factories had sprung up and prospered everywhere in the building of it. At the end of the war this was an embarrassment. The administrative board’s refusal to subsidise the equipment necessary for production of the Seven induced Sir Herbert Austin to work on his small car plan not in the official workshops, but at home, in the evenings, with the help of a designer. Although the Seven could thus have been built by another firm, under a different name as it turned out, the car, when it appeared, bore the name of the Birmingham firm.
Some 300,000 were produced. With the Baby, Austin was in effect doing what Peugeot had already done with the Bébé and Quadrilette, and Citroën with the 5 HP Type C. The Seven was also known as the Chummy–the ‘sociable’ 4-seater. Between 1921 and 1929 Austin made 100,000 Sevens, and roughly twice as many again in the next ten years.
First produced in 1922, in 1924 the engine of the Seven was enlarged (from 54×76.2 mm, 696 cc). In 1922 the standard Tourer version cost £165. This obviously lucky name (seven) crops up four times in Austin’s history: first in 1908 by events probably dictated by strong commercial pressures.
Between 1909 and 1911 there was another, single cylinder, 7 HP, though this time built by the Swift Motor Co. Ltd under Austin’s name (this car appeared in the Swift catalogue). It had a water-cooled, single-cylinder 1087 cc engine. In 1952, the name Seven was given to another series of low cylinder capacity cars, which remained in production for seven years–proof that this too had been spot-on in meeting market demand. Finally the first Austin Minis, announced in 1959, were called Austin Sevens.