Austin Motor Company
defunct English manufacturer of motor vehicles
The Austin Motor Company Limited was a British manufacturer of motor vehicles, founded in 1905 by Herbert Austin in Longbridge. In 1952, it was merged with Morris Motors Limited to form the new holding company British Motor Corporation (BMC) Limited, while retaining its separate identity. The marque Austin was used by BMC's successors, British Leyland and Rover Group, until 1987. The trademark is currently owned by the Chinese firm SAIC Motor, after being transferred from bankrupt subsidiary Nanjing Automotive, which had acquired it with MG Rover Group in July 2005.
History
1905–1918: Formation and development
While running the original Wolseley business, which had a highly cyclical sales pattern, Herbert Austin searched for products with a steady demand. Starting in 1895, he built three cars in his free time. They were among Britain's first cars. The third car, a four-wheeler, was completed in 1899. By 1901, his fellow directors could not see future profit in motor vehicles and so with their blessing and the backing of the Vickers brothers Austin started a separate car manufacturing business still using the name Wolseley.
In 1905, he fell out with Thomas and Albert Vickers over engine design.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q781156. VIAF identifies the subject as 134882210. The Library of Congress control number is n81132565. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905, 1952, 1987 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Austin Motor Company” 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.