Those Austin Princess Saloons can be easily turned into serious money makers , just clean it up and paint white , rent out with driver in tux (you) for weddings.....
I've not seen one in a junkyard for about three decades , it too was 100 % complete but had holes rusted everywhere .
All those Hillmans & etc. sold here in fairly large numbers from the mid 1950's through the mid 1960's , were serious fuel sippers , that's why they didn't need to stop well and were out of breath by 50 MPH ~ those few that weren't ruined by running on America's 55 + MPH highways , rusted out in short order . those few remaining , can easily be made into good daily drivers that return at least 35 MPG's.....
Some can be coaxed to run reliably @ 65 ~ 75 MPH with some tinkering and upgrades , my old Austin Metropolitan Nash FHC is a good example ~ it runs all day long at speed but , tends to not like high speed corning very much .
A Citroen Mechanic friend of mine has been trying to make me save a Sunbeam Station Wagon , it's a desert car and so is rust free , cheap too but I'm getting to beat up to keep rebuilding old vehicles , sad to say .
I bet he'd sell it to you for less than scrap value...
-Nate
Mark wrote :
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> The only English car I've ever owned was a '58 Minx DeLux sedan. Kinda fun; it was obvious it was came from a land in which acceleration, high speed driving and quick stopping were not especially valued. Probably just the thing for a leisurely jaunt in a country with few, if any, Interstate/Autobahn/Autoroute/Autostrada-type roadways.
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> When I was in 2nd grade, my dad bought a then-new 1968 Sunbeam Arrow wagon from some Bay-area Dodge dealer (we lived in Sonoma county for 9-months when he took a job at Fireman's Fund). This was when the Rootes Group, the parent company of both Hillman and Sunbeam, was acquired by Chrysler Corporation. The "Sunbeam" moniker was for US audiences only, as the Sunbeam name had a sporty connotation here. The rest of the world knew it as the Hillman Avenger. (A few years later, the same car, slightly updated, was again sold in North America as the Plymouth Cricket.)
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> The last time I was at Colorado Auto and Parts (one of my favorite P-A-Ps; they still let you in for no charge) about a week ago, they had a '61 Austin Princess in their used car section. RHD, so boated in from the homeland; pretty car, looked complete, but I can bet it would need 'bout everything just to be a daily driver. I looked underneath and didn't see any obvious signs of major rust, but didn't try (literally) poking around. I didn't bother to ask the price: was afraid I'd end up with a lightened wallet and yet another weird-car project to store at the shop....
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> Mark in Lakewood, CO
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