General Manager of the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company, Herbert Austin set the Birmingham firm on the road to motor manufacture in 1896 when he designed its first automobile, a twin-cylinder tri-car.

The first production Wolseley though, was four-wheeled and, like Austin’s 1896 prototype, carried its single-cylinder engine horizontally.

Wolseley’s directors did not share Austin’s belief in the horizontal engine’s virtues however, and he departed in 1905 to set up his own company at nearby Longbridge.

Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, the first Austin cars were powered by conventional inline fours with side valves arranged in ‘T-head’ fashion.

A van body was fitted to one of these early chassis and the firm’s first proper commercial vehicle – a 3-ton, forward control lorry – was built in 1913.

Austin made no serious attempt to compete in the heavyweight commercial vehicle market after 1922, restricting its output to light vans on passenger car chassis until 1938 when a range o...