What does your car say about you?

[Hooli]

Do I get the feeling you don't like them JimH?

[SiC]

Yet people who had a choice bought them! Bought them in the hundreds of thousands.
Why were those buyers putting their money into Standards over the Austin/Morris/Ford rivals?

I see it easy to dismiss them with hindsight of nearly three quarters of a century on what makes a motorcar good or not. But post war, motor car companies knew they needed new products but had no idea quite what. It's no good asking a potential customer in the early stages of a new technology on what they want, as they doesn't necessarily understand the product. So you find a something unique or different and throw it against a wall to see if it sticks.

They were built as the lowest common denominator as that was their differentiator against the competitor and try to lure customers away from their competition on this. Simple, dependable, robust and cheap seemed their unique selling points. Given there was a ready competition, if that proved utterly wrong then they wouldn't sell. Yet they sold a lot of them. Perhaps not quite as many as they would have liked but certainly the demand was there.

Evidently prospective customers would be prepared to spend a bit more to have a few extra luxuries and they adapted to the market on later revisions.

In modern terms, it's the Minimum Viable Product.

It's like getting snotty about a Dacia Sandero/Duster Access (at least previous to the fancy latest generation). Yes it's grim, yes it hasn't got anything of note apart from cheapness and they're utterly bland. But there is/was a market for them. Just now they're a bit cleverer and know the options on top are where the car companies can make their money. Hence Access trim in western countries are not a big seller - the levels above are.

[JimH]

You need to remember that the market in those post-war years was very different to what we have now and this is nothing to do with being snotty about the bottom end of the market. During the years of export or die new cars were extremely hard to come by on the home market so you didn't quite have the choice you have now. The Standard 8 was born out of the thinking that no matter what you build someone will buy it. It's the same thinking that gave us all that 3rd world and Soviet Bloc gristle.

Fiat 500s and 2CVs and Beetles and the rest gave us the idea of mobility being good and something that everyone could aspire to. The Standard 8 has none of those high ideals.

[paulplom]

You're making me want one. Surely it's the epitome of what we're all about?

[angrydicky]

Jim, stop being so silly
The Standard 8 is a perfectly acceptable and charming little classic car. The bootlid thing was particularly mingebag but later rectified, and as someone else said, if they were that bad Standard-Triumph wouldn’t have sold so many.
I’ve driven one, and it felt very solid and better quality than my A35. Nice little car. Also light years ahead of miserable pre-war designs like the Ford 103E which was also for sale new at the time. Hydraulic brakes, OHV engine and four gears (with synchro on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th) was decent equipment on a small saloon in 1954.

[panhard65]

Hydraulic brakes, OHV engine and four gears (with synchro on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th) was decent equipment on a small saloon in 1954.

All those things were standard in the Fiat 508c of 1939. European cars were far ahead of what we were offered in this country. It was only the high levels of duty on imports that held them back. The UK car industry didn't have to try at all as we would buy whatever shit was churned out. I have never been a fan of British cars as the Europeans and more recently the Japanese have done a much better job. My first car was a 1975 Datsun 100a in a totally different league for reliability and performance compared to BL's products or Ford for that matter at the time.

[SiC]

You need to remember that the market in those post-war years was very different to what we have now and this is nothing to do with being snotty about the bottom end of the market. During the years of export or die new cars were extremely hard to come by on the home market so you didn't quite have the choice you have now. The Standard 8 was born out of the thinking that no matter what you build someone will buy it. It's the same thinking that gave us all that 3rd world and Soviet Bloc gristle.

Fiat 500s and 2CVs and Beetles and the rest gave us the idea of mobility being good and something that everyone could aspire to. The Standard 8 has none of those high ideals.

You're trying to say that three examples of European noisy, low powered air cooled vehicles are superior to the Standard 8? 2CV was far more mingebag with its cloth seats with not even any padding. Let alone the complete lack of NVH suppression with its literal thin tin sheet design and no actual roof. Fiat 500 is tiny and woefully under powered. Beetle was expensive and had dangerous handling characteristics very unsuited to the many new motorists of the time. Maintenance not as easy or simple as a front engined water cooled lump - which a lot can be done without needing it to be lifted. Occupants would freeze even more as a half decent heater isn't even a viable retrofit.

Not sure how any of those examples could possibly be convincing superior alternatives to the Standard 8?
That at least had a decent cabin with a (compared to air cooled) quiet engine and a cabin that can seat 4 adults relatively easily in comparison.

Yes post wars cars were hard to get hold of but you still had a choice where you put your order in. Hardly comparable to those under the soviet system.

[SiC]

Hydraulic brakes, OHV engine and four gears (with synchro on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th) was decent equipment on a small saloon in 1954.

All those things were standard in the Fiat 508c of 1939. European cars were far ahead of what we were offered in this country. It was only the high levels of duty on imports that held them back. The UK car industry didn't have to try at all as we would buy whatever shit was churned out. I have never been a fan of British cars as the Europeans and more recently the Japanese have done a much better job. My first car was a 1975 Datsun 100a in a totally different league for reliability and performance compared to BL's products or Ford for that matter at the time.

Advanced for its pre-war time but still carried on with the exact same technology (I think same engines too?) on it's replacement, the FIAT 1100. That was produced in the same era as the Standard 8 but stretched on until the late 60s when the Standard 8 was long gone.

By that point in the late 60s, FIAT was pretty behind the big British Motor Corporation with its more advanced FWD designs, until the FIAT 128 came out.

As a comparison to what else out there in the same era there was the Renault 4CV. Another OHV engine and that base design lasted right to 1985 in base Renault vehicles. Much like the A-series used on base spec options in BL and Austin-Rover products. With that engine was replaced by the C-engines - another OHV!

I don't see how the Standard 8 was any different or even worse than everything else journeyman of it's era.

[AMCrebel]

I am with Jim on the Standard 8 - I have always thought they were hateful things, since first clapping eyes on one as a kid.

It's not a surprise they sold well in race-to-the bottom cap-doffing UK - where people brag to each other about how badly paid they are or how much unpaid overtime they do, as if it's a virtue.

[angrydicky]

I like old British cars. The more "porridgey" the better, it's all part of the appeal.

I was thinking about my A70 Hampshire the other day. OK for its day it's quite a large powerful motor, not a little car saddled with some wheezy little sidevalve, but why did they not sell or survive well?
I think it was because it was in an awkward place in the postwar lineup. When car production resumed there was huge pressure on manufacturers to come up with new, modern designs and of course export them to bring in the dollars. The Devon and Dorset sold well as they were good entry level cars and perfect for the new, "two car families" in the USA.
The Hampshire was too big and thirsty for this role, plus for some reason Austin never attempted to sell it in the states.
However, it was nowhere near as luxurious or imposing as the Sheerline, and not as striking and aspirational as the Atlantic.
The main competitor in 1948, the Standard Vanguard, was £30 cheaper and marginally better on fuel.
The Hampshire and Atlantic are very similar cars, but while they made 7900 Atlantics and 35000 Hampshires, the survival rate for Atlantics is a lot better. I would estimate at least 100 Atlantics have survived but only about 20 Hampshires (pickups and saloons). Atlantics were seen as a bit special back in the 60s which is why people held onto them.
The Hampshire's styling is pretty dumpy and uninspiring which doesn't help, it doesn't look striking or sporty at all.
I guess the design quickly looked dated and by the early 60s they would have been very unfashionable, thirsty old cars with heavy steering and most would have been quite rusty by then. 21mpg didn't cut it anymore, especially for a cheap secondhand car so most of the ones built were scrapped or banger raced. Very few made it to the 1970s.