IDRIVEACLASSIC reviews: Austin A90 Atlantic

Today's video is on the rare, but simply wonderful, post-war Austin A90 Atlantic

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On paper, the Austin A90 Atlantic was a commercial failure selling only 8,000 units, but looking at it today, it’s one of the most stylish and stand out cars Austin ever made.

The A90 came out in 1949 and cost an eye watering £824, which to put things into perspective, the average house price in the UK in 1950 was £1,891 making this car an exceptionally well considered purchase for a very small sector of society.

However, despite the car being made at Longbridge, it was never intended for the home market, but instead went after the American market.

This wasn’t a commercial decision Austin perhaps wanted to take, because in the years after the war, the government controlled the steel supplies and any company failing to export was refused supplies. So really, businesses needed to come up with attractive models to compete.

With this, the A90 Atlantic was launched at the 1948 Earl’s Court Motor Show, which must’ve been an absolutely incredible event to go to, because it’s also the show which saw the launch of the Morris Minor.

The car, reportedly designed from a sketch by chairman of Austin, Leonard Lord, who was highly influenced by a Farina bodied Alfa 2500 spotted at a show in Geneva in 1946, was initially a convertible car designed with the 2,660cc 4 cylinder engine with an output of 88hp at 4,000 RPM.

In fact, the A90 was named as such due to the 88 brake horse power on that overhead valve engine, with the Atlantic name picked because it was aimed at uniting the UK market with the American buyer.

The performance was pretty good for the era, giving over 90mph as top speed with 0 to 60 in just under 18 seconds. This made it one of the fastest early post-war production cars.

The car was put into the American market to compete alongside American home grown models, but with it’s engine much smaller than it’s American counterpart and high price tag, it just failed to make an impact like it should’ve, with only 350 ever sold into the US.

It should’ve been the success Austin planned, because it hit all the right notes, it was simply let down by the 4 cylinder engine that whilst good for Britain and other non US export markets, just didn’t cut it with the American buyer who was sold on the notion of nothing compares to a V8.

The car instead found its audience in the UK, mainland Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but these markets just didn’t hold up the sales figures predicted within the US market to make the Atlantic the success it needed to be.

It must be mentioned however, that the car did break 63 stock car records at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in April 49, so whilst it might not have been the success Austin planned, it did hold its own against the V8 cars pitted against it.

Another interesting fact about this car, is the fact the indicators, being designed for an American market were flashing relay style. In the UK at time of launch, this wasn’t legal and wouldn’t be until 1956, because at the time it was simply non flashing trafficators which were put onto cars.

The brakes on the car were hydro-mechanical Girling drum brakes, with rod operated to rear. It shared parts with the A70 and this was done purely to ensure the Atlantic went into production on time. Later on, the hard top cars had fully hydraulic brakes.

Although we look at the cars as works of art today and see their true beauty, in the 60s and 70s the cars with their propensity to rot were scrapped quite rapidly with the introduction of the MOT test in 1960 and Healey owners who stripped the cars for their running car.

There are now only around 60 Atlantics left in the UK, with a further 100-ish across the rest of the world.

For the car once dubbed to have sports car performance with saloon car comfort, it seems a real shame the true value of these cars wasn’t realised sooner, although thankfully the Austin Counties Car Club really look out for these cars now and with values going skywards, they’re rarely scrapped nowadays.