Big challenge! Amazing sounds! 1932 Austin Heavy 12/4 Windsor
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- čas přidán 6. 07. 2024
- Pre-war classics remind us just how far cars have come! No synchromesh, mechanical brakes and a whopping 27bhp made this Austin Heavy 12/4 a proper challenge on modern roads. Fun though!
Huge thanks to Stuart for letting us drive Gerty from the 1930s.
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The marketing slogan used to be: You buy a car, but you invest in an Austin". This one certainly seems to have been a good long-term investment.
Indeed given it has lasted so long, and I guess in those times you didn't change your car every five years when an updated model came out.
And the gearbox and gear changes were a chance to show your skill (which is largely lost)
I have Gertie's little sister Ruby. She has synchro on 2nd, 3rd and 4th. However, when I first bought her she had a completely non synchro gearbox from an earlier car. I used her as my everyday car (in the mid to late 90s), so soon got proficient at gearchanging. I was able to change gear completely quietly probably 19 times out of 20. Later I installed the correct type of gearbox for her year (1936). I drove her extensively, including numerous times into central London, and a holiday in Britany, France.
For the last 20 years or so I have had her on the Costa Del Sol in Spain. No longer an every day car, but still she has been used extensively here, including several trips to Ronda (up a mountain road from the coast).
I'm glad to see Gertie is also regularly used. Cars are not supposed to be museum pieces. They are living, breathing things that thrive on regular use.
You do a great job presenting these older cars with lots of detail in a relaxed style.
Like all the others commenting, it's wonderful to see vehicles of this age so well maintained and used regularly. Terrific video, and great filming from Ms Hubnut, as always! And that horn! Fabulous.
Delightful old machine! Glad you had the opportunity to drive this around the lovely countryside, instead of just a closed course...I did a double-take when that third gen (1961-63) T-bird showed up at the end!
Better than classic Top Gear.
Ian's even got a Chris Goffey beard 😅
What an absolutely wonderful old car.
As the British always said in the old days: We start in third gear and there we stay.
In retirement areas you can still hear sub-1000cc engines pulling away in 3rd gear, on a regular basis.
@@borderlands6606 Ahhh the aroma of burning clutch....
@@Clodhoppingchange clutch, not gear 😁
@@borderlands6606Happens here in Denmark too. Often in a tiny Suzuki 1.0 😁
What a beautiful car, the noise,you can see your enjoying yourself, be great to have more roadtests of cars of this era
I love the noise of the old beastie
It's good to see Hubnut, doing what he does best.
Hopefully, we'll see you and the Mrs, out and about camping soon.. Cheers 👍👌
Most definitely!
The sheer delight on Ian’s face 🥰🥰🥰
Enjoyed this Ian and Carly. Love the colour of big Gertie
Absolutely loving the symphony of sounds from this gorgeous old girl! You're a very lucky man Mr H, getting to drive such a manificent machine 👍👍
I still feel the HubNut fleet should have an Inter War car
My father had a pair of 1931 Austin 12/4 cars, both convertible. When he sold them in the early 1950s, he kept the clock from one of them. It's now in a mahogany mount in my bedroom.
What a Beautiful vintage Hubnut Test Drive. I loved seeing & hearing "Gertie" with a lovely engine "Thrum" as she ambled along the road.
Wow! This is absolutely majestic. I love to see these types of cars tested on the channel. Good work everyone 👍
Nice one fella and yes the older motors really do require major focus when pointing them in the direction you hope to go. God bless my good dad as he used to say when having a gear change crunch " It's a gearbox not a jukebox". 😁👍
Just wonderful, from a time when motoring must have been a gentle pleasure.
So satisfying! The extra engagement needed to drive a car of this vintage looks like challenging fun. Every moment of your video made us smile 🙂
Wow, nearly 100 years old and with a performance air filter, fantastic!
Just imagine HubNut and the family going on holiday in this , now that would be a good vid .
Picnic in the back , salmon and cucumber sarnies to go .
Ant Hill Mob on tour?
Lovely antidote to modern computer cars
You drove away at the roundabout at the end and I heard the old, old Top Gear exit music (Out of the Blue, Elton John) fade into my head!
Thank you so much for that delight! I'm lucky in a way to have been to some car shows in the eighties when some of these were still hanging on. I remember my Dad (1937-1986) being quite nostalgic for the bigger expensive cars of the thirties and forties. Though his parents had Rovers and Jaguars a decade or so later.
“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” vibes. This is relaxation par excellence.
King Charles favorite movie...
This 1932 Austin is 90 years old and is still going down the road after all these cars were built to last and boy has this Austn lasted all been well it should be around for another 90 years
Oh that's lovely. I love videos about ancient cars like that.
What a great piece of nostalgia, Ian. Well done! Sir Herbert - as he was when "Gertie" was born, he didn't become Baron Austin until 4 years later in 1936 - would be so proud that a lovely old lady from Longbridge is still going strong. All that was missing was one of the two [or maybe both] HubNut ladies dressed in a silk or satin evening gown topped off by a cute beret, climbing aboard, and then you could have done a little cameo acting as chauffeur whilst they waved at the hoy-polloy from that sumptuous back seat!
A beautiful piece of the past. Probably the best time to have been driving. None of the entrapments of today's motorists just pure joy of the open roads. I would have loved it
I've driven a 50s Austin A40 and that was tough enough but oh so much fun. Like you say the gear changes are definitely the hardest bit. Steering is very imprecise as well. Have to concentrate to stay in a straight line.
Straight cut gears always sound properly mean and industrial! Love it!
I live in that area and I see a chap driving an Austin 7 around with some regularity. Its Black and Maroon if I remember rightly.
Is it just me that was excited by the dashboard illumination.
Nope. Cheers!
Reminds me when my clutch cable broke on my 205. I was about to bother dad and I decided to to clutchless changes to get home. It was great fun and I got home. Stoping and starting was hilarious. But with planning only had to stop start twice. Enjoyed this video. Like 734
Essentially Gumdrop.
Beautiful old car!
Your smile whilst driving her said it all....
Made me smile all the way through the video.
Very nice and interesting to see and listen how an old vehicle like this is driving. Really lovely. Driving those days must have been really hard work. Thank you for this video and interesting impressions. 😊
Someone round here has a flatbed truck built on a Heavy Twelve chassis... whilst a friend owns a Sixteen with a similar body in the same colour.
Well done Ian, my mum (1934 to 2015) learnt to drive on one of those and was told "If you can drive that, you can drive anything maid!"
Nice video Ian ! Love the old stuff . Driving was a challenge back then ! Cheers from Arizona 🌵 not freezing here 🥵
The sound of straight cut gears. Not something you hear today. Definitely takes you back in time. Amazing that 29 horse power can haul that big machine around like it does. I imagine it has pretty good torque. I remember the Volkswagen bug with 40 horse. They didn't like hills either. Beautiful old car. Thanks to you, and the owner, for sharing it with us.
They were slow up hills but unlike big water-cooled cars of the era they didn't overheat on mountain roads. My late mom liked to tell how proud she was as a kid going up the Großglockner road in the family Beetle passing all the stranded Opels and Mercs.
Pre war motors are a lovely experience once a little confidence is gained. As you allude to, anticipating the actions of modern motorists is possibly the greatest challenge... I wonder if you can find an Edwardian motor to drive, you'll find that another level again but a wonderful and unforgettable experience.
I just love to see these 30s cars! They look so elegant. ❤
Nice T-Bird shot at the end!
Never been into Pre war cars but Gertie is lovely
What a delightful car, thankfully though vehicles have moved on somewhat, and become more readily available to the masses since those days.
Great video Mr Hubnut ❤.
I'm not waiting for the day when you'll start reviewing Ferrari's. You are too genuine for that shit. And I'm glad you had this opportunity to know this old lady.
If I do drive a Ferrari, I promise it'll be a 308 GT4 or Mondial.
@@HubNut but please don't. No youtuber came back whole after Ferrari power trip. Stay with simple cars. They are awesome too.
@@HubNut Or a Ferrari hill tractor, much like Porsche and Lamborghini there are Ferrari tractors
Absolutely fantastic, something i will never do. Thank you.
What an lovely car Ian , but it’s hard work 😓 driving one! And perhaps even scary for the first time! Fantastic that it’s driven so often! Makes everyone smile! 👍🏻👍🏻🆙
Hi Ian & Carly! There's a guy local to us who drives his 1920s 2 door saloon daily, come rain come shine, even in the snow! Not a clue what it is, but it's a similar shade of blue with black wings/running boards and a black padded hard top roof. It has an oval rear window, but alas, I've never got that close to begin knowing the make. I've sat behind it on numerous occasions doing almost 70mph on the Balmedie dual carriageway, so he's most definitely up to the task of driving it! Beautifully patinated machine. Cheers. Leigh.
Awwwwwwwww, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. thankyou Ian. Int it funny how this brings a tear to your eye, even tho i was born in 1960. love from New Zealand
I always enjoy your vintage / veteran car outings 👍
It was such a good review of a delicious old beauty, that I had to watch it twice.
Something I've come to appreciate more recently is the characteristic engine / gearbox / exhaust sounds of particular brands. This '20s/'30s Austin sounds like a Morris Minor from the '50s onwards, for instance. I could always identify a Renault even as a young child back in the '70s, but we'd be talking about cars of a single generation because old cars were rare due to sheer rot. The really weird one for me is how my current car (2014 Fiesta diesel) has exactly the same transmission / exhaust thrum (albeit at twice the road speed for any given engine speed) as the 1.1-litre Fiesta Pop Plus I learned to drive in 35 years ago - separated by several generations and running on different combustion methods.
My three wheel Morgan has a crash box,so rewarding when you get it right
Proper motorcar.
Also, as I remember from driving and being driven in pre-war cars, 45mph is an entirely satisfactory speed for cross-country work, as it might have been called in the day.
What's a charming old car never had an old car but I one day
another great video has always Ian and Carly miss/mrs hubnut and hublets and hubmutt 👍
Absolutely lovely
Fabulous! My dad used to read me stories, when I was a wee lad, about an Austin Clifton Heavy 12/4, called 'Gumdrop' while occasionally breaking into, as it turns out, quite accurate transmission noise impressions. The chap who wrote and illustrated the books was called Val Biro.
I've actually already driven a Tourer more like Gumdrop. I was also a fan of the books. Val Biro actually owned Gumdrop and would regularly take Gumdrop to shows.
@@HubNut Brilliant, just gave it a watch there. I noticed the lost temperature guage, Gumdrop lost his in one of the stories but got it back care of a chicken I think, the old girl you drove at beaulieu wasn't quite so lucky.
Great video, Ian. What a lovely car. I remembered where I saw one of these. In the miniseries "Mapp And Lucia" the estate agent is offering to drive Lucia to inspect a house, and he tells her he has an Austin Windsor saloon. At the house we get a couple of glimpses of the car.
Awesome!
Thanks for the period ride 😊
Absolutely gorgeous 👏👍
What a lovely old car. Fun video! thanks
Hi Hubnut, and thanks for such a good look at such an interesting car. For the most part the gearbox drowned out the sound of the engine, but I did hear it once or twice and it's a nice noise. On synchromesh, it was the province of Cadillac and a few other makes in 1932, but was spreading rapidly, so I imagine it would have found its way into the pricier Austin's only a year or two after this car. Cheers.
What a lovely car. Great sounds!
I wouldn't care if that car's top speed was 5 mph, to be in a car that old would be a joy to drive.
Reminds me of "All creatures great and small"...
I think the original car was older than the one used in the TV series though. The story begins in 1937 and the car is described as ancient, so I'd assume 1920s, possibly early 20s, like the Seven Ian drove last year. A Ruby would have been brand new at that time, not an old banger.
This was absolutely brilliant! 😀
Such wonderful noises, a true symphony....
Hi
Brings back memories of a heavy 12/4 Berkley that i brought back to life in the 1980's. Mine was 1860 ccs and complete with autovac and vernier adjustable timing. I could never get the hang of double declutching as revving the engine just as pressing the clutch seemed to elude me. Good see see you fighting the road sutfaces with cross ply tyres.
Not going to lie but that would terrify me driving this. An excellent road test as always Ian and Carly.
Cracking video Ian
Absolutely brilliant video Ian miss hubnut ❤👍what a beautiful car absolutely amazing car brilliant
Magnificent midland motor carriage.
Welll done Ian a brilliant video as ever and always loved those vintage Austin’s since a boy when a neighbour had two Clifton 12/4 (gumdrop!) and he was always working on them they have a special sound and charm about them and you can’t believe how motoring has changed but glad gertie is used and loved and not a museum piece
I drive a car about this era and you are absoloutely right that the hardest thing to deal with being drivers of modern cars not appreciating what you are dealing with. I think they see an old car and think that although it looks very different it is more or less the same to drive as a modern. Not so! Even if you drive a car like this at the limit if its capability and your capability to control it, drivers of modern cars imagine you are out for a leisurely drive. To be fair most people don't mind been held up and give a thumbs up or a wave, but a bit more room for error wouldn't go amiss.
Wonderful and possibly your best video. What a lovely car and so nice that it's regularly driven and not a trailer queen. The Thunderbird at the end looks positively modern in comparison!
That was a wonderful drive! And what a great sound!
Beautiful car you lucky bugger
This is either you'd hate it or love it experience, and I'm one of those mad people that would love it!
Thanks for review!
I guess ‘Gumdrop’ was just different in body style - memories of reading those stories by Val Biro to my children and his visit to their school. Now I can put some sounds to them!
Another great review Mr Hubnut.
Beautiful car and great video, folks 👍😄
Lovely old bus. Have a 1935 Dodge Pickup as my oldest Truck and a 1924 Maxwell as my oldest Car. Got a couple of 100-year olds. Even crushed a few 1920's Fords and Essex's about four years ago. This old stuff is VERY common around here even over 100 years later!
These older cars are so fascinating in terms of their simple mechanical layout and the fact they tended to just focus on the basics rather than creature comforts that added luxury but also more things to go wrong. I'm amazed at how roomy this one is in the back - it's pretty much a limousine!
Because there's no boot...
More great content. I guess going out for a leisurely drive wasn’t the same back in the day
Lovely old car Ian. My Dad had an Austin 10 when I was little.
Nice 😊
What a car, I’d be terrified. Loved the contrast at the very end. My mums 93 and from a relatively affluent background and remembers some cars from her youth, I do wonder what she makes of modern life generally, but particularly cars - she generally just states things are awfully complicated now dear.
Love this video!!! The best!!!! More please! Thanks
Lovely old girl "not mrs hubnut" the car I'm talking about😂. Nice tbird at the end mate. Aussie Graham.
That little squeak from Miss Hubnut as you picked up speed 😂❤
Just lovely. This is very similar to Siegfried Farnon's car featured briefly in series 1 of the BBC version of All Creatures Great and Small. The car featured in the opening theme in series 1 to 3 and so was immortalised in this way, even though it didn't feature much in the actual show. It makes you want to drive one to Yorkshire and splash through a stream (not sure the owner would like that)...
Ah, yes. The first series was so long ago that the period cars weren't so precious and the cast could go bashing around in fields without seemingly a second thought. In the current series the cars are treated like museum exhibits and barely move.
Great video, I was told my great grandfather would travel up to Oxford with his brother to buy Austin 12s to bring them back to north Devon, they would then cut the backs off them and turn them into pick-up trucks to use around the farm.
Seeing this car again is amazing. Just love the looks. 😊
Lovely. ❤
Thanks for sharing this Ian, always love pre war cars. 😊👍