HMC WBOD news

[comfortablynumb]

My dad had a ruby as his first car, bought it for £16, my mum did a reupholstery job on it, including buttoned door cards. It was pressed into service when he did his national service, travelling from at Albans to Portsmouth and back.

When they sold it he got £27!

[HMC]

12 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

There seems to be a lot of anti-Ruby snobbery in Austin 7 circles.

Also, a lot of good Rubies have been stripped of their bodies and turned into specials which is a shame. Looks like a nice example. 
Have fun!

This specials fate was on the cards for this one. 

I  mean the chummy is great, a party trick is being able to lift up a corner by hand. Its quite stark, which is what makes it special. I Love its simplicity of design and spec.

But I really like rubies as well. They are cute,  handle comically and although heavier and less pure they are just as charming in their own way IMO.

Daily users both..

1978 motorsport- Rubies have been the poor relation for a while….

[HMC]

21 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

My dad had a ruby as his first car, bought it for £16, my mum did a reupholstery job on it, including buttoned door cards. It was pressed into service when he did his national service, travelling from at Albans to Portsmouth and back.

When they sold it he got £27!

What year would that have been?

I was talking to a lady in her 80s today who shared a flat with bill boddy’s daughter @barrett in the 60s . Apparently boddy used to potter round london and visit them in a 7. Whilst students they had several on the road  (and bits in the house) within a group of friends.

Apparently one blew up on the a30 in wiltshire and they had an engine in the back so changed it at the roadside.

Her husband used to race an Ulster and she is going to bring in a few old pics for me to look at.

[Tommyboy12]

I'm looking forward to getting my 7 on the road. It might be an earlier box saloon but it's ended up with a Ruby engine so the power/weight is a little higher than it should be

[comfortablynumb]

I'll have to check with mum @HMC, but I know he didn't start his service until he'd completed his apprenticeship, he was permitted a delay, so it must have been about 1955?.

I've already asked mum to see if she's got any pics of it, I'd love to know if it still exists!

[mercedade]

19 hours ago, HMC said:

 

 

 

Neither of these cars do much for me personally, but that's a great photo and I love they're just out there doing their thing

[RayMK]

19 hours ago, comfortablynumb said:

My dad had a ruby as his first car, bought it for £16, my mum did a reupholstery job on it, including buttoned door cards. It was pressed into service when he did his national service, travelling from at Albans to Portsmouth and back.

When they sold it he got £27!

Dad's first car in 1954 was a 1933 A7 box saloon.  It was a dull dark red colour, had a sliding roof hatch which leaked, rusty door bottoms and rust stained headlining. Not bad for £15, which was about two weeks wages.  Dad replaced the roof hatch with a hardboard panel (!), 'plated'  the door bottoms with aluminium sheet obtained from the aircraft dump, mum made and fitted new headlining using mid-grey felt material, then dad brush painted the  car with black Valspar enamel.  Dad, mum, brother and me toured Dartmoor a few times from RAF Little Rissington.  On one very warm summer day we were motoring at the A7's typical speed of 30mph in Dartmoor with the aircon on full (windscreen open), when a swarm of bees was scooped in.  Brakes were slammed on, we gradually stopped with doors also open and abandoned ship until the bees moved on. Dad's parents lived in Hastings.  We visited once per year in the 6 years of A7 ownership. From Little Rissington,  the trip used to take about 8 hours each way.  My younger brother's cot was strapped on to the spare wheel for the  overnight stay, returning home next day or two, at 30mph of course.  When visiting Whipsnade zoo, the A7 always vapour locked on the same bend on the hill to the zoo, requiring a compulsory 20 minutes break.  Its engine was often on the kitchen table, jewellers rouge getting everywhere, as dad lapped the valves in after each of its many decokes. Eventually, in 1960, dad sold the A7 for £25 to an American serviceman who lost control on ice about 6 weeks later, writing it off.  Grainy photo which I've posted before: Dad's A7 in 1955, mum posing in driving seat, brother on the loose (he was probably nearly 2) and me sitting on the running board (5 years old approx.).

We did not see Rubys very often but car ownership in the 1950s was far less common than it is now.  @HMC's looks great, another car in a very long line of interesting acquisitions. 

[bigstraight6]

On 24/11/2025 at 17:28, comfortablynumb said:

My dad had a ruby as his first car, bought it for £16, my mum did a reupholstery job on it, including buttoned door cards. It was pressed into service when he did his national service, travelling from at Albans to Portsmouth and back.

When they sold it he got £27!

My late Father also had a Ruby as a first car, apparently one of the first cars to be parked in Wycliffe Road, Efford Plymouth. He managed to snap the gear stick off but Grandad was a fitter at Plymouth Corporation’s depot and repaired it. I remember finding a box of brake linings for the Austin in Grandads shed in the early 1980’s..

[HMC]

Austin 7s and formula 1 cars might not make  obvious bedfellows, but they have some odd things in common.  

A mclaren, earlier.

They both have quite violent clutches that visibly shake the whole car when engaging.  Plus they both have bodywork/ engine fairings that can be modified to suit the ambient conditions. More cooling/ more drag and less cooling less drag. 

 

Mexican GP spec cooling levels, but the circuit is going to university tomorrow in traffic. Think Spa with rain and bus lanes. There certainly wont be a fastest lap; and hopefully  there wont be a DNF. 

[HMC]

Ruby news-

Number plates- 

rear- nice

front- modern replacement with wanky font-

yuck!

Meanwhile….

in progress (sprayed a cut down ally sheet, and then bought some caniballised large 3.5 inch ally characters )

Done!

And because im an idiot and embrace risk (sometimes) for fun i decided to take it through rush hour traffic on my commute to uni..

and made it there

And back

Was good as gold. Modern communting speeds mean its fairly usable in modern traffic, as long at its not too hilly!  

Having said that, skittering over bumps in the dark with marginal lighting and rear axle steering on corners takes a fair bit of concentration and commitment. As does moderns assuming it has a modern’s level of retardation.

Self preservation won through though and the plucky brit made it back (is that me, or the car? Both ? )

 

[HMC]

With variety being the spice life it makes me glad i can fire up an old jag and slip it into “d” next time and just chill.

Whilst also reflecting that the UR-jag was basically an austin 7 with a fancy body on it.

 

[comfortablynumb]

I love stuff like this, after all the naysayers with "Oh you can't use an old car everyday!"

Yes you bloody well can, you might have to adjust some things a bit, but that's what they were built for back in the day!

Congrats on using it properly 🙏

[High Jetter]

Brilliant to see it being used as an car. I hope you don't have the nickname of the mad professor!

[HMC]

Chummy news…

Working title:

A series of bizarre events in swansea @LightBulbFun

You might remember the issues related to historic vehicle tax and the chummy. Basically this then resulted in the only way it could be used was it being taxed as PLG- a continuation of its status when it was last taxed in about 1986.

The post office counter and the dvla via phone call confirmed to me that it was not possible to tax it as historic as they didnt have a date of manufacture. This despite all parties being happy that it existed by june 1929.

I was told produce documementation or other approved means of authentication regarding its date of manufacture. By chance the 1929 ledgers hadnt been destroyed/ bombed. So i got a transcript …

I then was supposed to send this , my v5 and a covering letter explaining the situation. This seemed a bit tiresome but i sort of had it in mind to get round to eventually, but…..

Imagine my suprise when this came in the post…

So- was this a circular triggered by  a 1929 PLG status anomaly in the bowels of the machine? Had something happened specifically behind the scenes on the data entry for PG1107? There was no way to know.  Bearing in mind as yet I had done absolutely nothing that I had be instructed to.

I did decide on chancing my arm with v5 in hand, in the queue at the town’s post office again. Some people bailed out as it was quite long. Not me. Euros, recorded delivery, something about a lost umberella; My time was coming. The anticipation built.

And this time the computer said yes and its all sorted. Great! But also slight bewilderment. PG1107, aged 96.5, is now “historic”

 

[lesapandre]

To paraphrase poet Alfred Lord Tennyson...

'Ours is not to reason why, ours is to historic tax and sigh.'

🥳 

[LightBulbFun]

45 minutes ago, HMC said:

A series of bizarre events in swansea @LightBulbFun

So- was this a circular triggered by  a 1929 PLG status anomaly in the bowels of the machine? Had something happened specifically behind the scenes on the data entry for PG1107? There was no way to know.  Bearing in mind as yet I had done absolutely nothing that I had be instructed to.

it sounds like you missed my previous post where I explain all of this?  which your outcome confirms  

https://autoshite.com/topic/29726-hmc-chummydvla/page/261/#comment-3371819

On 15/11/2025 at 17:51, LightBulbFun said:

did you actually tax it as such? if so do you recall what the amount charged was? 

 

im about to go Full DVLA/Vehicle Licensing  Nerd so bare with me

 

but basically *before* Historic Vehicle tax as we know and love was introduced in 1995, for Motor cars produced before 1947 and Motorcycles before 1933, a concessionary half rate was charged

and I have always wondered do they still do that? if you decided to leave a vintage prewar vehicle in the PLG taxation class, do you still get the concessionary rate? 

so I would love to know if you did or did not with your Austin Seven  

do you know the DVLA history of the Seven? its only actually fairly recently they recorded the actual "Date of manufacture" on vehicle records and for vehicles which have been sitting dormant for many years, this info only gets automatically added once the vehicle is taxed/brought alive again

see how in the first screen shot "Year of Manufacture" is Missing but then pops up once the vehicle is taxed  (only older versions of the DVLA checker would show you this insight, newer versions just automatically populate a year of MFG from the Date of first registration field)

 

this whole retroactive addition of a vehicles Date of manufacture

is why you get shit like this!

"Date of first registration 5 November 1976"

"Date Of Manufacture 30 December 1976"

 

because I have the one and only time travelling Invacar, either that or whoever programmed the DVLA computer needs a slap....

 

if you have an account with the DVLA I would add your Seven to it and see what it reports back for Date of of manufacture  

 

it might just take a day or 2 for the systems to update, and worth trying again now perhaps 

 

 

[HMC]

Re reading it- yes thats exactly what you said, thanks. Thinking back it would have been useful if the person i spoke to at the dvla also had this knowledge - which i guess is unfair to expect (?)

[comfortablynumb]

DVLA in 'Don't know what they're doing ' shock? 😁

[Dick Cheeseburger]

HMC when the snow falls on the moors...

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1C8q4oybhx/

[HMC]

Jag News…

Its a brilliant WBOD. Its less than perfect bodywork (with moss growing in a few places) lessens any guilt about its front line use over winter. Actually it encourages it as car parks hold no fear, its fairly invisible despite being almost 30, and (whisper it) its pretty much disposable.

It sits in heavy traffic, doesnt get hot, doesnt misbehave (touch wood dash) and is of course very relaxing and quietly iconic (i think)