1936 Austin 7 Nippy
This is a genuine 1936 Austin 7 Nippy restored and modified by the current owner.
HISTORY:
We will let the owner tell you more about this fabulous Nippy:
‘At 15 years old my parents bought me a Super-Accessories Special to keep me off motorbikes. I bought this Nippy when my son was seven, with a view to the same result. It took until Harry was 21 to finish the restoration, by which time Harry had grown to 6ft 4in and no longer fits in the car! Hence the sale. The log-book says silver and black, so that is the colour combination. However I doubt silver was available in the 1930’s. The 14 years allowed time to collect together all the period tuning and improvement parts of the time, so the car is now around the best one could spec in 1936.’
‘Anyone who’s driven an Austin 7 knows the brakes are terrible. This Nippy has the Bowdenex cable conversion that improves things from “poor” to maybe “adequate”. The chassis is boxed as per the original racing spec which significantly improves stiffness and handling (and the brakes a bit). All else is standard Nippy until one gets to the engine.’
‘An Austin 7 uses “spit and hope” lubrication whereby a jet of oil is fired across the crank-case to hopefully impinge on drillings in the crank that then lead oil to the big-ends by centrifugal force. This works surprisingly well on a 17bhp engine but is left wanting thereafter. This engine has a balanced pressure-fed crank with oil fed through drillings from the timing gear end. The cranking handle is redundant. Sealing is by miniature piston rings in grooves. It is important to warm the engine up gently and to monitor the auxiliary oil pressure gauge until warm. This engine is still running in. In 1000 miles the gauge can revert to the original one. All bearings are new. New +60 pistons are fitted. Big valves, heavier valve springs, sports cam and followers. The original 1936 cylinder head is actually a better unit than the alloy heads of the time, so this is skimmed and re-fitted. The block and combustion chamber entry is ported as per period recommendations. A Bosch distributor with matched centrifugal advance is fitted. It also has a high capacity aluminium sump and crank-case stiffener. A 4-branch exhaust and ultra-rare down-draught inlet manifold with down-draught SU carburetor completes the engine specification. The intention and prediction is to achieve 30bhp after run-in.’