Austin 8

The Austin 8 was a small British family car built by Austin from 1939 to 1948, launched in February 1939 to replace the ageing Austin 7 and its Big 7 stopgap. It kept the 900 cc four-cylinder side-valve engine of the Big 7 but sat on a new chassis built around a pressed steel floor pan with box section side members, to which the body was bolted. Prewar buyers could choose two or four door saloons, two and four seat tourers and vans, while the postwar range shrank to the six light saloon and the van. About nine thousand military 8AP tourers, known as tillies, served the armed forces, and Australian coachbuilders produced their own bodies on imported Austin chassis.