Herbert Austin, General Manager of the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company, 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.

Austin's belief in the horizontal engine's virtues was not shared by Wolseley's directors 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.

Chain drive was a feature of these early Austins but was supplanted by shaft drive within a few years.

Austin had its own large coachbuilding department and offered a wide variety of complete cars, and even in these early days was in the habit of using English place names for its various body styles (there are Melbournes in Derbysh...