Glenbuchat Heritage

138 Bellabeg Shop in 1922? No, in 2022

Photo of the Bellabeg Spar shop in autumn 2022 with an Austin Big 7 outside Thanks to Nicole Carr for the photo.

In fact it could not have been 1922 as the Big 7 was produced 1937-1939

The model here is from 1938 and owned by Johny Johnston of Brughs Strathdon

Johny had a collection of old cars including a number of Austin Sevens and vintage motorcycles.

From MotorCar.Net

"The Austin Big 7 was a compact car of the Austin range of the late 1930s, built by the Austin Motor Co in 1937 as a supplement to the Austin 7 between the Seven Ruby range. By 1939, after three years the production was stopped. Successor was the Austin 8 .It was not a great success, although in total 23,514 were produced.This model filled the gap in the Austin range of the late 1930s, between the Seven Ruby, which continued in parallel with the 747 cc engine and was a refined version Of the immortal Seven, and the contemporary 10/4.

The Big 7 had by now a dated chassis came just before Austin committed to the semi-unitary construction and the chassis layout of the Ruby was used, The Big 7 price at around £160 was not highly regarded in its day with little space even with suicide doors the 'boot' had space for only the spare wheel, the luggage had to be carried in its open boot with the lid open.

The Big 7 was about 12 inches longer than the Austin 7 ,There were four seats, , with a steel body in two and four-door saloon body and had a larger four-cylinder engine .The 900 cc engine offered little power advantage over the 747 cc Seven unit. From 900 cc 25 bhp (18 kW ). So the car top speed of aound 90 km / h."