When Herbert Austin founded his eponymous car company in 1905, having earlier been instrumental in getting later rivals Wolseley established, he concentrated initially on relatively powerful, large capacity machines.

The lure of competition soon proved too strong with the fledgling company even entering vehicles in the embryonic Grand Prix series three years later though with negligible success.

Having dabbled with a physically much smaller single-cylinder 7HP vehicle at the turn of the century this car ultimately showed the path forward that Mr Austin eventually took.

After the rapid production boom caused by the First War’s munitions and equipment requirements, followed by an even speedier bust on the cessation of hostilities, the by now Sir Herbert Austin is rumoured to have kept the Longbridge factory gates open on the toss of a coin and the goodwill of his workforce; the coin making the decision to try to soldier on and the workforce’s willingness to work unpaid for one month e...