Monday 26 July 2021

Minis 4 My Birthday


It's my birthday today so here's a post on one of my favourite Corgis. The little Austin Seven, as it was first named in 1959, first appeared as a Corgi model in January 1961 when it was listed as an Austin SE7EN. By then the actual car's name was being changed to Austin Mini but Corgi's stayed as Austin se7en on the box. In catalogues it started as an Austin 7 Saloon in the 1960 catalogue, where it appears in primrose, a scarce early colour and without any 'Available Later' tag despite not being in the shops, according to the Great Book of Corgi, until 1961. I wonder now whether that launch date is right?

It stays, somewhat inaccurately, as an Austin 7 Saloon in the 1961 catalogue but is now red and it remains red in future catalogues but with just the name Austin 7 in the 1963, 1965 and 1966 catalogues, disappearing in the 1967 one, somewhat later than the Great Book's suggestion of withdrawal in 1965.

It starts with fixed smooth wheels, then gets fixed shaped wheels and finally free spinning wheels from around 1963.

I happen to have just four models on my desk this morning and each is different, something which makes these models quite interesting to collect.

 


You'll see that these are, from left to right,

  • type 1a text on angled sides, holes in base
  • type 1c text on angled sides, no holes in base
  • type 2a text all on flat surface, no panels
  • type 2b text all on flat surface, no panels, post near sump.

These have free spinning wheels except for the first which has smooth fixed wheels. The base types are the most frequently encountered and I have written more about these across the mini range, for which there is a link on the front page of the news blog.

To the best of my knowledge, all the Austin minis have the first type of body, Type 1 which shows smooth front wings as the most obvious of several casting features. Type 2 of the Mini body has a distinct horizontal line and angle line on the side of the front wings and this can be seen on the later Morris editions. If, as I believe, this casting began to be used in around 1966 then it would seem that production of the Austin would have ended earlier. However, it remains something I always look out for, like the 226 mistakenly painted red and 225 mistakenly painted blue which do appear from time to time.




I only have a US 1960 catalogue to hand but the 1961 catalogue prices it at 3/5d whereas the 1966 catalogue has it at just 3/3d.


The one box that I have shows the higher price of 3/5d. Later catalogues, however, all have the 3/3d price for both the Minis.





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