Austin A40 Devon
Range of automobiles manufactured by Austin Motor Company
See Austin A40 for other A40 models and Austin A40 Sports for the sports car version of the Devon.
The Austin A40 Devon (and similar 2-door A40 Dorset) are automobiles that were marketed by Austin from 1947 to 1952 – the first post-war saloons to be produced by Austin – featuring a mix of old and new technologies. They were previewed by the UK press at the Paris Motor Show on 22 October 1947, who expressed immediate disappointment at the car's conservative appearance. More than 450,000 were built before the model's replacement in 1952 by the Austin A40 Somerset.
Mechanicals and bodystyles
Both the Devon and Dorset were body-on-frame designs with modern bodies and a 1.2 L straight-4 OHV engine producing 40 bhp (30 kW) at 4200 rpm. They featured front coil sprung independent suspension but retained a rigid axle and semi-elliptic leaf springs at the rear. The Girling brakes with 9 in (229 mm) drums were operated hydraulically at the front and mechanically at the rear. Later cars had column operated gear change and full hydraulic braking. A sliding sunroof and heater were extra cost options on the UK market.
The Devon was the 4-door version and was more successful than the 2-door Dorset, which was dropped in 1949 after only 15,939 were made.
“Austin A40 Devon” enters the record as range of automobiles manufactured by Austin Motor Company. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Austin, Devon and Range can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Austin A40 Devon” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Austin, Devon and Range provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1631801. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1947, 1952 and 1949.
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This entry incorporates text from “Austin A40 Devon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.