Austin 7 Ruby – Homeward Bound

Something slightly different now, in the form of a reader submission from James Wheeler, who tells us the story of the Austin 7 Ruby that has become most dear to him. 

My father’s grandfather started a bicycle shop in Newbury in 1902, with pedal power soon being joined by motorcycles. As the business expanded, Wheelers of Newbury had several sites around the centre of this attractive Berkshire market-town, and with bicycles eventually making way for cars, at one stage there were two showrooms opposite each other in the High Street, one with motorcycles and the other with cars. Soon after a final move to larger premises, my father could see that there would never be a position for him within the business due to the many family members now involved, so he established his own car dealership in Wantage in 1964.

Wantage Motors soon held the agency for the products of BMC which necessitated regular trips to the distributors at Hartwell’s in Oxford to have warranty work carried out on cars. Sadly, the passage of forty years has diluted my father’s memory slightly, but he thinks that he saw this little green and black Austin Seven Ruby parked unused in the car park of the pub opposite Hartwell’s Seacourt Tower during the late 1970’s, gradually looking sorrier for itself as time passed. On one trip to Hartwell’s probably in 1978, he called into the pub to enquire if the car was for sale, and ended up purchasing it.

My father took the Ruby to our recently acquired family home in the village of Winterbourne, near Newbury, and put it into the back of the garage parallel to the rear wall, wedging it in with a 1954 Bentley R-Type and the 1969 Lotus Super 7 seen in the photograph.  And there it sat, stationary, while I was growing up. Naturally with the Lotus and Bentley in the garage (and an Aston Martin DB6 in another garage) I must confess that I didn’t show the little Austin much interest, and neither did my father.

I presume he must have had thoughts of moving the idle fleet on at some time in the mid-to-late 80’s as we have photographs of them all being extracted from the garages. The DB6 Saloon had seen limited use and was the first to go in 1986 for the grand sum of £6,000 (NBH 941D, DB6/2556/R where are you now?), and the Austin Seven was next to go in 1987. The following year the R-Type departed and the Lotus was two years later when we moved house in 1990, my father having covered just six hundred miles in sixteen years in the little Lotus Twin-Cam engined rocket.

I have a photograph of the Ruby being pushed onto the back of my father’s trailer in the winter’s rain, and as far as I have been able to establish it was sold to the owner of Town and Country Tyres in Newbury. They did nothing with the car and soon sold it onto a local car trader who stored it in the barn of RL Motors, a car repair garage in Newbury. The car dealer started to dismantle the car with the aim of restoring it, but he soon lost interest and it sat in the garage’s barn for some years.

Shortly after the Millennium, the proprietor of RL Motors was approached by an old school friend of his who was looking for a 1930’s Austin. The brother of the school friend had an Austin 10 and he wanted something to go to car shows in with his brother, and he must have been surprised when he was shown into the garage’s barn and there sat the Ruby.  A deal was agreed between the school friend and the car dealer owner and the car was taken to Hungerford in Berkshire and a restoration promptly commenced.

After about eighteen months of hard work, the retired engineer had the Ruby repainted in its original colours (although, by accident the green is lighter than it should be) and back on the road in late 2003, the finishing touch being the DVLA granting the re-registration of the car with its original number plate.

The gentleman then used the car as intended and attended many shows in convoy with his brother in his Austin 10, although after about seven or so years his brother moved to Somerset and the Ruby saw less use, with it last being driven about five years ago.

Over the past few years I have been trying to trace the cars that my father used to own when my brother and I were growing up, and the Lotus was traced to Belgium, the Bentley (UYK 721 / B55WG) to Germany, and a Mini Moke (EJW 635C) to Preston in Lancashire (by coincidence, where the Ruby was sold new). I also managed to locate some other cars that my father and his family used to own before my brother and I were born, and was successful in finding a Bentley MkVI (DGS 481) in Buckinghamshire (via Texas, USA), an MGA FHC (RBL 376) in Herefordshire, and an Austin Healey (RAC 497) in Oxfordshire that is incredibly still owned by the lady who my uncle sold it to in 1957.

The car that proved the most difficult to trace was the smallest one, this Austin Seven Ruby.  I have found that car clubs, dealers, and former owners have been incredibly helpful in helping me trace our old family cars, and the Austin Seven Clubs have been no exception, with lots of people suggesting ideas and possible leads. 

I first made enquiries with the former car trader owner in October 2017 and all he recalled was that it had been bought by someone in Hungerford who was going to restore it. In December 2017, I submitted an advert on Car & Classic with the title “Searching for a 1936 Austin 7 / Seven Ruby EPG 289” with a couple of photographs of the car from 1986. I had several suggestions from people but none led anywhere, but eventually patience paid off, because while I was in Paris attending the Retromobile event an email arrived giving me the name and telephone number of the current owner. I was so excited and then, by coincidence, a few moments later, I met Tom Wood, the CEO of Car & Classic. I could not hide my excitement of finding the car after such a long search, and Tom asked to be kept informed should I end up seeing the car again.

A former Secretary of the Austin Seven Clubs Association who lives near Newbury had spotted the advert on Car and Classic, and remembering the neighbour of a relative in Hungerford owned an Austin Seven, he asked the relative if the car in the advert was the Ruby in their neighbour’s garage. It was, and they very kindly sent the email that I received at Retromobile.

I have always had a love of vintage and classic cars and have owned an MG M-Type and an Austin 7 Chummy in the past, as well as several Alfa Romeo cars from the 1950’s and 60’s, some of which I still have. Who and what we are stems from our childhood, and my parents always drove Alfa Romeos so my love of that marque is understandable, and perhaps my interest in Austin 7’s stems from the little Ruby in the garage, despite me never paying it any attention at the time. Well, I certainly am paying it a lot of attention now, as after going to see the car in Hungerford in March and after several conversations with the owner during the summer, I was delighted to acquire it in early September. Sadly I am unable to enjoy it immediately as it needs some careful recommissioning after years of being idle, but hopefully I can get it back on the road in a few years’ time after some other projects have been completed. I am just delighted to have it back in the family and must thank all those who were instrumental in allowing that to happen, especially Car & Classic.