Vintage Roadscene Archive

1866 - Herbert Austin born in Little Missenden, Bucks. 1877 - William Morris born October in Worcestershire. 1895 - Herbert Austin designs first Wolseley car - a three wheeler. First four-wheeled Wolseley comes in 1900. 1896 - Leonard Lord born in No

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Sound commercial sense, or the merger from hell? Back in 1952 when Austin and Morris were combined into one single conglomerate, the company Public Relations Department line at the time was that the move was necessary because the British Motor Indust

For the sake of argument, let’s assume for a moment that we’re in the market for a modest fleet of new commercial vehicles at some time during the mid-to-late 1950s, or possibly the early 1960s - arguably the period during which the whole manufacturi

The BMC normal control cab was neat, but dated. The forward control Willenhall cab was not a BMC design anyway, although it’s replacement did have a flourish of Trans-Atlantic swagger about it. So what can we say about the FG range? It really was one

The FJ tilt cab range really did put BMC centre stage in the commercial vehicle market and the very fact that British Leyland kept the cab in production for so long after it took control must surely testify to it’s sound design. More proof? Leyland e

Quite how transport magazine journalists managed to write a serious Road Test article without a scathing comment concerning ‘badge engineering’ when a Morris was actually an Austin is difficult to gauge half-a-century on. But amazingly the subject wa

That product, as you will have already observed is the BRS Parcels ‘Noddy Van’, as it was widely – and I think we can assume, affectionately – known. Underneath that… what’s the word - utilitarian? – body is a well-proven BMC chassis. Or to be more p