Some years ago I wrote the following overblown homily for the local VAR mag. (Readership is not all technical as the Forum!) It took quite some thought to string together so I thought I would try a bit more mileage to justify the effort. It seemed to interest some (well at least one) thoughtful local. I have paid to read worse in car mags. It might bemuse some readers of the Forum.
(The Hemingway quote used was sourced from a newspaper article; the only wide reading I have indulged in has been of car manuals and textbooks!)
The recent publication of photos of the Dunlops in chummies, with the hoods down, communing with the winding secondary roads of Scotland prompted recall of the article.

Nostalgia Sevenfold

My father was a plumber and in the late 40s/early 50s used his own car, our family Austin Seven 1934 box saloon to attend maintenance jobs. In those days it was usual for the housewife to be at home, and for morning and afternoon tea to be laid on for tradesmen. The Austin was often a topic of conversation. The car was not then unusually old or uncommon but my father was surprised at the degree of nostalgic interest it frequently aroused. Even the most well-to-do waxed lyrical about some Seven they had owned. My father occasionally reflected on the reason for this copious sentiment. He concluded that young adults at the time would in many cases have spent their 1920s/30s childhood and youth in homes where there was no car, or where use of the family car was very restricted. For many, their experience of real freedom began with ownership of their first car, or with a boyfriend with his first car, very often an Austin Seven. The adventures coincided with courtship and early married years and the best times of their lives, and hence were recalled with heightened nostalgia. (Life for ordinary folk in NZ immediately pre, during, and post war was less austere than in the UK and many young men owned a car, although it may have been only a well used early Seven.)
The family Seven came my way, kept me occupied after school as a teenager, and then provided everyday transport throughout a the country during the 1960s and after. Again the car evinced many misty eyed reminiscences from middle aged and older folk.
I have additional theories for the exceptional level of nostalgia. Ernest Hemingway is attributed with the observation, "It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."
Hemingway was an American; he was not alluding to motoring in an Austin Seven! His observations are even more relevant today. In quiet air conditioned, smooth riding powerful automatic moderns, wafting along roads for which the landscape has been remade to suit, with the CD playing, any association with the original countryside is lost. All vehicles are much the same; neither the vehicle nor travel is particularly memorable.
Not so with Sevens on the roads of yesteryear. The little engine detected gradients (and head winds) as readily as a cyclist. The harsh roller bearings communicated when the engine was trying hard and when it was not. The driver found himself willing the car to go (and stop). The basic springs conveyed every bump and undulation, with sound accompaniment. Unlike moderns, the Austin did not respond precisely and passively to every input, nor did it meekly absorb every road disturbance. Instead it hopped, skipped and darted about like a self willed live thing. Constant steering adjustment and correction was required*. The occupants were clamped in tight fitting bucket seats with every pitch and lurch conveyed. The driver effectively became as one with the car. Travel was therefore accompanied by a huge sense of mutual achievement "Together we did it."
Compared with other cars of the time the "baby"' Austin, and particularly the engine, appeared miniscule... too small for serious conveyance. Reflection on this after any journey served to further heighten the sense of accomplishment.
With never ending greasing, oil changes at every 1,000 miles, decarbs almost as frequently, and regular cleaning of the sump recommended, many impecunious owners became familiar with the mechanism. And sooner or later most owners were drawn into some d.i.y mechanical repair... valve grind, kingpins, brake linings etc, which furthered their close association with the car.
As with a cyclist, a detailed familiarisation with the terrain (and surface!) of any route was acquired. More so than the situation with a "real" car and certainly unlike the situation with a modern. Journeys stayed vividly in the memory.
Then there was the remarkable intimate seating. Driving a girlfriend home from a dance guaranteed continued contact almost as close as the last waltz. No front seat passenger could be ignored or forgotten.
It seems all these factors contributed to embed Austin Seven experience deep in owner' s memories. The cars were (and continue to be) remembered in a way that very few other models have been.


* If this does not sound like your Seven chummy or saloon then you are... driving seldom, slow, avoiding roads less than perfect and/or have the spark retarded.

Anyone still awake?

I guess now few are sufficiently old to remember, or to have experienced, the exceptional degree of nostalgia which applied.

Bob Culver

Location: Auckland