1950 Austin A90 Atlantic
British convertible with 4-cylinder engine and unique fender design.
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Austin of England
The Brooks family bought this car early in 2022 with a view to rebuilding it. In less than a year, they have turned it around, and it is in the lovely condition that you see today.
Restoring the Original Beauty
It has required a little welding, but more importantly, all steel panels are the originals on the car, and it also carries its original registration number, LSM 233. Tosh and Gus have taken it back to bare metal, with Tosh applying Ming blue-colored paint, its original colour. It had been painted silver and black in 1955, and then, at some time in the 1970s, it gained a white coat of paint. It was laid up in the 1980s and didn’t see the light of day until 2002!
The Austin A90 Atlantic was displayed at the 1948 Earls Court motor show, with volume production starting in 1949 and continuing until 1952. The Sports Saloon was introduced in 1950.
Len Lord, the Chairman of the Austin Motor Company, had personally penned the Atlantic in 1947, and Dick Burzi, the Austin stylist, fine-tuned its lines. Len Lord appreciated that, in order to earn dollars, Austin cars should appeal to the Americans in order to obtain a steel allocation from the Government at a time before wartime austerity had finished. Sadly, the Atlantic never did, hence its short production run.
This car featured a modified Austin A70 overhead valve engine, with the capacity increased to 2,660cc and outputting 88 bhp, which was later seen in the Austin Healey 100/4. The three-speed gearbox was operated from a gear change fitted on the steering column.
Of the 7,981 cars built, 3,597 were exported, but only 350 were sent to the United States, the target market. This was despite the marketing efforts in the USA, including the Austin Publicity Manager taking a team over to Indianapolis with an A90 and capturing no less than 63 stock car records and a $1,000 price cut later in 1949.
For the American market, the car was fitted with flashing indicators rather than the required trafficators for the English market. One of Herbert Austin’s daughters was stopped by the local constabulary and fined for driving an American specification car in England without trafficators!
The convertible was quite advanced, with hydraulic cylinders operating the hood. While early cars were fitted with hydro-mechanical drum brakes, where the front brakes were hydraulic while the rear were mechanical, in 1951 the brakes were updated to hydraulic all around on the Sports Saloon, which helped bring the 26 cwt vehicle to a rest.
According to Wikipedia, there are less than 60 A90s left in the UK.
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