Austin 7s in the Italian Alps

lawrencejedsilva
Oct 27, 2019
5 min read

Updated: Jan 26, 2022

An unlikely pair in Liguria's forest covered mountains.... same applies to their drivers!

The mountain roads of Liguria

It's September and I'm returning to the quaint town of Molini di Triora, on the wooded slopes of the Italian Alps. A timewarp of a place with hugely winding roads that get narrower and narrower as you ascend, up and up, hairpin after hairpin. In these tiny towns, the roads are so narrow that only the smallest cars are practical. It's amazing that in 2019, one of the most popular cars in this region is still an early 80s Fiat Panda 4x4; most of them originally green but now sun-bleached to shade of minty toothpaste.

The Panda drivers are also a bit of a stereotype. As I tentatively drive our awful, vague, wobbly brand new hire car (Citoren C3) around some sheer-drop-and-no-barrier hairpins, I'm regularly met with a rotund 75-year-old man in a Panda fearlessly gunning round the corner in the opposite direction. I guess if you've lived all your life here, you know what you're doing, or so you would hope.

I'm regularly met with a rotund 75-year-old man in a Panda fearlessly gunning round the corner in the opposite direction.

Much rarer in these parts is the sight of two antique Austin 7s. I find them and their owners at the town's 'Lago di Noci' (Lake of the Walnuts). Molini sits on the valley floor and the lake is fed by an Alpine stream. Directly above us is another small town where we had been for lunch earlier in the day. These towns, on the map, appear virtually on top of each other. Little would you know that one is in fact many hundred feet above the other. It might only be a stone's throw away, but in reality it's a 10 minute drive up a winding mountain pass.

Building roads on such mountainous terrain is a feat in itself (video clip):

An unexpected encounter

So at the lake sits the bright orange car with the owner tinkering with old fashioned oil cans as he tops up the levels under the bonnet. I walk past the Austin 7 and mumble something in bad Italian about how much I like it. He replies in a not-very-Italian way and takes off his flat cap. To my great surprise I know him! Within seconds, an even dinkier Austin 7 pulls in too. This bloke also looks strangely familiar. The reason for all this was because back in 2011, I had done an exchange term in Italy whilst at uni in the UK and had spent time in Molini. I have met both of these guys before and even been round for dinner with one of them and a couple of other locals. Hans (orange Austin) is a horror movie producer from Sweeden and Francis is a classical film-music composer from London. They had moved hear over 30 years ago and spent spent time living nearby in Bussana Vecchia; a town abandoned at the turn of the 20th Century due to a major earthquake. The town was then resettled (illegally) by a community of artists from around the world, starting in the 1960s.

Hans (orange Austin) is a horror movie producer from Sweeden and Francis is a classical film-music composer from London.

Both of them had bought Austin 7s many years ago and driven them over to Italy, which given how small the cars are, and how basic, must have been a hell of an effort. To get an idea of size, imagine a full size car, any car, and then imagine a child's pedal powered scale replica of the same car. Now imagine something halfway between to the two and you now have a good idea of how small an Austin 7 is - tiny! They are basic in a way that any car from the 1920s is basic. In other words, no power steering, sketchy brakes and a handle at the front to hand-crank the engine (although both have now been retrofitted with starter motors).

In my ignorance, I had always assumed that Austin 7s were box-shaped things like the one tweely towing a trailer of firewood in the photo below. Little did I know they made more sporting versions. Francis' car is the less glamorous looking silver one behind, but thanks to a bit of tuning is actually the faster of the two. Both cars sport Austin's 750cc inline-4. The silver car was built in 1927 and the orange one a few years later in the early 1930s. Both have undergone significant modifications. In fact, so many cars were later modified and upgraded (having been recommissioned post WWII) that it's impossible to quote an accurate power output without dyno-ing each car. Can Dynos even register such lower power levels?! Whilst the very first examples of the car had 7 horsepower, which gave the Seven its name, many later Seven's were rated at many multiples of that. Modified versions were higher still. All this is a way of saying I didn't ask about bhp, and for cars like these, who really cares?

Significance of the Seven

The Austin 7 is an incredibly important in the story of automotive history. The first BMW - the BMW 3/15- was in effect a rebranded Austin . Nissan also based its first cars on it. William Lyons spun out the popular Austin 7 'Swallow' and manufactured it at new premises in Coventry; this laid the foundations for what later became Jaguar cars.

The first ever BMW was a rebranded Seven. It's a testament to the Austin's importance in the automotive industry we know today.

The '7', which was considerably smaller and under half the weight of a Model T Ford was what saved the Austin motor company in the 1920s. Prior to this date Austin had been making larger, pricier cars which were out of reach for all but the wealthiest. With increasing demand from the middle classes, the 'Seven' was born; it was known as 'the car for the millions', a cheaper alternative to other manufacturers and came in all guises from 2 seat sports cars to bread vans. It was a great success for Sir Herbert Austin’s company and is often seen as the first 'global' car with 290,000 examples being made, of which roughly 11,000 are still in existence today.

The appeal of the Austin 7 is really about pragmatism. One of the cheapest vintage cars to both buy and insure. For those who like a tinker, they are one of the easiest cars to work on and replacement parts and how-to guides are abundant. The Seven might be very slow by modern standards, but with such a lack of mass and tyres not much wider than a mountain bike, they're still a lot of fun to be had, even at 30-40mph!