Sunday, April 10, 2016

The Mystery of the Austin Wasp Revealed

Here we have an Austin Wasp with two young tow-heads on the bumper and our mother when she was in her thirties and 'full of beans and bounce.'

That expression was English for feeling good and energized but why beans would do that is unknown.  Maybe jet power.


This is the driveway at 108 O'Conner Street in Sydney.  There were other places we lived but this was the last one until we left for America.


For verifying what the car was, here's an Austin 8 Tourer:



The reason it was an Austin 8 in England is it was manufactured there until the start of WWII in 1939.  After the war, production started again in Australia and this version was the Austin 8 Wasp.  Production stopped in Australia in 1947 so the car must have been six or seven years old in the picture.


Our father would laugh about how ridiculously underpowered they had built the car and here's a brochure of an Austin Wasp with a whopping eight hp:



In maybe the last model, the horsepower went up to a killin' twenty-four.

The mystery was in trying to find the car earlier.  I gave 'austin wasp' to Google but it came back Austin 8 and that set off the OCD.


Here's a somewhat different vehicle in that same backyard:


This was a bit later than the first picture but Lotho and Barbie still aren't in the game yet.  This must be about 1956.

The windows on that part of the house were for the sunroom and this was the one into which I introduced a garden hose to flood it so we could slide around on the floor.  Our parents did not share my enthusiasm for this invention, however.

Note:  I have not seen these pictures for many years and Queen Bee surprised me when she uploaded them today.

No comments: