Welcome to the Austin Seven Friends web site and forum

As announced earlier, this forum with it's respective web address will go offline within the next days!
Please follow the link to our new forum

http://www.austinsevenfriends.co.uk/forum

and make sure, you readjust your link button to the new address!

Welcome Austin seven Friends
This Forum is Locked
Author
Comment
Sevens on TV

Hi

Have any of the car restoration programmes ever 'done' a Ruby - or any Austin Seven, for that matter? If not, why not?

Colin

Location: Cheshire

Re: Sevens on TV

I think that "Car SOS" did a box saloon, but I haven't seen it.

Location: Piddle Valley

Re: Sevens on TV

Peter Clayton
I think that "Car SOS" did a box saloon, but I haven't seen it.


Don't think so unless it's recorded but not broadcast yet.
They did a heavy 12 tourer somewhile back.
Fuzz did get involved with a Ruby and maybe a box as well awhile ago in connection with practical classics but I believe it did not end so well.

I seem to recall the roof being chopped off one of them not sure which, maybe it was the one that got turned into a special.

Steve V.

Location: Polegate, East Sussex, United Kingdom

Re: Sevens on TV

I've watched quite a few of these programmes but never seen a Seven - but some of the programmes run to several series so I have not seen them all, by any means. If no Sevens have been featured it is surprising given their popularity and availability? It would be interesting to see a Seven, but the way these programmes go about showing restoration seems to me to be very unrealistic - so much is glossed over and reported timescales are shrunk beyond credibility. Not sure why they do this - wears a bit thin?

Colin

Location: Cheshire

Re: Sevens on TV

A Seven would seem to be the ideal car for one of these programs, nice and simple to pull apart and all parts available, but all these type of programs work to a format, find a car,house,or whatever restore it, with a more or less unlimited budget in a given time frame, and every body goes wow at the end. Very little is shown on how to do the actual work that seems to just happen between the presenters having a good time and the end of the show.

I suppose these type of shows are now the only things we are allowed to watch these days, as anything informative could blow up in their faces when some idiot rebuilds his brakes incorrectly after seeing it on the telly.

Does any one remember the special being built at Beaulieu autojumble a few years back, now that would make a excellent program, filmed from finding the parts to the finish vehicle built by a team in a long weekend spread over a half a dozen programs.That would be worth watching.

Location: Pembrokeshire

Re: Sevens on TV

Fairly certain I saw a Ruby in the background of a recent replay of Foyle's War (the after-war series) but so brief, not featured. There was an old English film (of course, name forgotten!) that featured a Box saloon as a bank-robbers' getaway car and the commandeered chaser was a short wheelbase Box. Filmed in London traffic - which must have taken some organising. I doubt there's ever been anything filmed which featured a Seven being restored. Cheers, Bill

Location: Euroa, Australia

Re: Sevens on TV

Perhaps we should all be thankfull Clarkson never got to a Seven. (I wonder if he realises the grand opportunity missed. Antics with the Robin could have paled into insignificance! Would probably have ended using a jaws of life to extricate him. A top speed run on a bumpy road would have established if he really is a skilled driver. Maybe he tried one and his nerve failed.)

Where the restoration shows are costed, often seem very moderate for the work done professionally. Some actually recover much of the cost! Suspect some mighty discounts granted

Location: Auckland, NZ

Re: Sevens on TV

Contrary to the above, I seem to recall Top Gear heaping praise on a Chummy they used. Or is that selectful thinking? Cheers, Bill

Location: Euroa, Australia

Re: Sevens on TV

IIIRC James May featured a Seven in his list of the world's greatest cars?

Re: Sevens on TV

Good morning all. I believe the Ruby was made road worthy and is in the care of one of Practical Classics writers. The box was turned into a special but it hasn't been featured for some time.
Regards
Stuart

Location: Staffordshire, the creative county.

Re: Sevens on TV

Hi everyone,
Reading all about Sevens on TV must have awoken the last workiong brain cell as if I recall did not a box get blown up in an episode of Foyles War? Before you all get too excited one camera shot looking through the bonnet side grills showed clear air through the radiatior, so no mechanicals then. The poor thing looked very much like a sad looking rolling shell and that's before it exploded!
James May of Top Gear extolled that it was the humble Austin Seven that introduced the now accepted standard three pedal layout (right throttle) on a production car, if true fame indeed.
Peter

Location: Not so sunny Cornwall today

Re: Sevens on TV

Just checked on-line - Wheeler Dealers, Car SOS and Classic Car Rescue haven't tackled a Seven in any of their episodes. It would perhaps be good to see something unusual from the Seven world from the wide range available - there are so many possibilities from an early Chummy onward - and plenty of cars out there that need work? Though the format of the various programmes leaves a lot to be desired, they do at least have the potential to raise the profile of a featured car in people's minds, which is helpful in the long run? For example, the bit on Top Gear showing the prescient pedal layout proved positive Austin press.

Colin

Location: Cheshire

Re: Sevens on TV

One of the items in the History of the World in 100 Objects

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/4BZXGAaiRASAqQNuvQ6DdA]

Location: Ripon

Re: Sevens on TV

In one episode of Foyle's War they blew up an RN saloon.

Re: Sevens on TV

peter burton

... James May of Top Gear extolled that it was the humble Austin Seven that introduced the now accepted standard three pedal layout (right throttle) on a production car, if true fame indeed.
Peter


Not true, of course! Certainly the Austin Twelve had the same pedal layout, and pre-dates the Seven by a year, maybe the 1919 Twenty did too? But I have no reason to believe that any Austin was the first (I think James claimed that the Seven was the first to have both a centre-change gear as well as the 'standard' pedal layout, which probably means an American car was the first...)

Re: Sevens on TV

The episode in question was a Top Gear episode in which Clarkson and May looked for the first car with the conventional control layout used today. They did not conclude that the Seven introduced it, but instead as such a cheap, popular vehicle in the UK, that it was the car which made the three pedal layout the accepted standard.

A reasonable assumption I think, given the number of Seven's sold, and the sheer number who learned to drive in one.

Location: Penrith

Re: Sevens on TV

Re the reference above of the Box being blown up, I didn't recall seeing that - until the other night by co-incidence one of the repeats Of Foyle's War was shown. So if not seen before, at least a lot of Ozzies have now seen it. Cheers, Bill

Location: Euroa,Australia

Re: Sevens on TV

There was a series on ITV called "Home Fires" which was cancelled in 2016 after only two series. There was a box saloon possibly a RN which was often in the background driving around the village. Must have been driven by someone with plenty of ration tokens.

Location: Piddle Valley

Re: Sevens on TV

I'd forgotten the one in Home fires just tantalisingly clear to view without being able to see it's number.