1952 Austin A40 Sports GD3 - uncovering its history.
I applied to the British Motor Museum for a Heritage Certificate
for this car, which hopefully sheds some light on its early days,
particularly its export destination. Did it get sent directly to New
Zealand, or was there another chapter before that? Some weeks later, it
arrived!
↑So
definitely built for export, definitely not red originally, and a birth date
of 12 January, 1952!
Extensive sleuthing on the Internet almost always comes up with some results, and that is definitely the case here.
↑These two stickers are
inside the rear boot panel, so I Googled The Vintage Austin Register and
NZCC magazine to contact them.
↑I also had these
registration tags (wich show it incorrectly identified as a 1950 model), and emailed any other New Zealand classic car organisation I could find,
introducing myself and the Sports, and explaining the history I was trying
to trace. Someone, somewhere, must remember the car! I also searched for,
and joined or contacted, and relevant Facebook groups.
↑Almost instantly, thanks to the power of the Internet, I had a reply from a
member of the Vintage Austin Register, with this photograph of the rear of
the car showing at a club picnic at Bull Creek, Otago, in 1999.
↑I also accessed the New Zealand registration records at the website
carjam.co.nz, which is an amazing resource. For a small fee I was able to
download the car's entire registration history, through many owners, from
its initial registration 27th May 1952 right through to the dealership in
Dunedin who purchased the car 6 Dec 2004, and subsequently sold it to its
Australian buyer, when New Zealand registration records cease. That pdf can
be downloaded here for anyone
interested. Further researching the original numberplate, AD421, shows it
was registered in Dunedin, New Zealand.
↑I so want to find out
whether this car, photographed in Dunedin in the 1960s, was wearing the
AD421 plates!
↑Here is a jpg of the article in the Oct 1998 NZ Classic Car magazine of my
car and its then owner, and restorer, the late John Shanks. It was after
John's death that the car was brought from NZ to Australia by its next
owner. The pdf of this article can be accessed
here. Huge thanks to Trevor Barnes in NZ for finding, photographing, and
sending me this file!
↑Two photos sent to me from New Zealand that show the car when it was
visiting the photographer's home at 9 Forbury Rd, Dunedin, in the early
2000s.