Hello Hidro

World War I introduced a generation to the motor car, the benefits of mass production reaching britain from America on models like the 1924’s Morris Cowley. Refinements of 1914’s luxury models were now universal: with electric lighting came electric starters, four-wheel brakes, and low pressure tyres of longer life. Once no longer needed a big engine to carry four people: Herbert Austin’s 1923 SEVEN, intended to replace the motor cycle combination, coped on a mere 3/4-litre and was still only 104 in. long. The peculiar English taxation system bred such tax-dodging curiosities as the 1927 Jowett, in which a small flat-twin engine lived at the front of a long and narrow chassis capable of transporting four large adults.

By 1927 closed cars were beginning to supplant the traditional open tourer. Sex appeal crept in, William Lyons of jaguar fame producing his Swallow “customisation” of the Austin Seven – curvaceous lines, pretty two-tone paintwork in place of sombre blacks or greys, and still costing less than $200. (more…)