Mk1 Austin A55 Cambridge Goes for a Drive 

A Friend of mine in year 11 inherited a 58 A55 to drive to school from his Mum. It was two tone blue, and so different , he actually scored a couple of girlfriends with it in Canada ( Left hand drive of course) taught both girls to drive in it,....

I absolutely loved my A55 Cambridge, mine was black with rare manumatic gears. Always wanted a two tone one but that came later when I owned a two tone blue A95 Westminster similar styling. I was so upset when an Austin Maxi drove into the back of my Cambridge, that's when she went to the scrapyard in the sky.

In the mid to late sixties, an order came from the top (Mum). Dad was not to buy any more American Tanks, as mum put it. My father and I loved cars, specially American. So dad and I started car hunting. We came up with a 1958 Austin A105 Vanden Plas. I started reading about it in magazines etc. I said to dad, this is a special and rare car. An I was 12 at the time. The 105 looked like a big version of the A55. Ever since, I've had a real soft spot for whole Austin range 1957 - 59. I'm now a 65 year old Great Granddad. But it's strange, Dad's been gone nearly 45 years, and I still miss him so much, and of course mum. But dad and I were so similar, mum would say "your a mirror of your dad, including personality". A positive message by mum, because they were married almost 61 years. God bless and Kind Regards

Lovely old thing. Back in 1967 I was a trainee mechanic for a Alpha Coaches in Patcham, Brighton, I bought an A50 from the head fitter for £8.00, I will write it so you dont think its a typo, Eight Pounds, Good old days

It’s got such a happy face! Car styling was jolly and adventurous back then, not aggressive and samey as with modern cars. Great review Matt

The ANGLE of the windscreen is very pleasant. It doesn't seem too close to you, and is easy to see out of you. And the Speedo right in front of you, is EXACTLY where it SHOULD be! A car among cars.

Beautiful classic 1950s design. Looks good from every angle and I love all the small styling details. The two-tone paint scheme is fabulous. I also love the interior and dashboard. You never mentioned that the bonnet scoop actually feeds air to the carburettor.

I remember the driver of an A60 (6 cylinder version) helping to tow my Dad’s later Austin Cambridge estate plus caravan up a rather too steep hill in Cornwall back in the sixties.

My second car - when I was fifteen - the first being a Morris 1000 bought for £5 on becoming a teenager. Lucky enough to live next to a disused aerodrome. Yes, those big, comfortable seats are real leather and tanned in a much better way than modern car leather which will sag rather than age as well as these have done. Lovely to hear the familiar BMC engine and transmission sounds, mine had the floor mounted gear lever - and I was so impressed that it was possible to spin the wheels in second - on a bit of gravel! Thanks for such an informative video of an often overlooked British family car. (You could do such a better job of Top Gear than the two and a half clowns that ruin it nowadays!)

1970 In the RN I used to drive one flat out from Oxford to HMS Raleigh. Torpoint. East Cornwall, a 5 hour trip at 33 mpg the handling was brilliant. Mine had quite a high mileage but I am sure she was quieter than that...

So, this car was sold in the US as the Austin Cambria? My father drove one of these in 1963. I was five at the time. It was black, with a red interior... leatherette, I think. The one thing I remember was how the directional arm had a flashing light at the end of the arm. I loved it.

Brings back memories of learning/passing, to drive all those years ago. The spare was stored underneath the boot, cover being let down using the starting handle. Enabling the spare to be removed without unloading the boot and lowering the plate, using the starting handle, holding the spare without clearing the boot.

As a child of the 60s I remember these cars well. My father was a car mechanic and would work on the cars of family and friends. You hitting your head the bonnet of the A55 brought back memories of my father doing the same thing on some cars back, he also used a few choice words at the time😂. A college of my father had an A55. I remember once going out with my father and his college in the A55. His son was driving and was honing along some twisting country lanes with me and my father sat on the back seat. You’d be surprised how hard those cars could be driven and of course no seat belts so you had to hang on. Different times.

This type of lovely little four-pot BMC saloons are the first cars that spring to mind for me once I think of English motoring. Prim and proper as well as full of charm, with enough restraint to be characteristically British. It's also worth mentioning that Smiths was the main supplier of instrumentation in English autos since 1915 and was their only true 20th century watchmaker. I recently tracked down a 15-jewel Astral with a secondhand subdial from 1960 and hope it lives up to expectations.

My dad’s friend had one of these in the 70’s He absolutely cherished it and would give it a new coat of paint (same two tones) every year just to keep it looking new.

That red leather interior screams; I'm not German, French, Italian or American. I'm British!

Very very unlikely it's not gone round the clock, I would want to see proof ! But even 135k is still only just over 2 k per year. Lovely old girl 😯

Nice. I had a1957 Morris Oxford for a while. I bought it in 1980 as a one owner car from a guy who had stopped driving a few months before. He was 86 at the time. Unfortunately it was far too rotten to restore. It still drove well though.

My father had it’s big brother the A90, an ultra smooth strait six. We felt like royalty riding in it.

The car that featured in Michael Palin's ' East Of Ipswich ' set in the late 50s , and ' himself ' as a boy.His engineer dad overtakes a portly Rover P4 very swiftly, and remarks " all bodywork those Rovers " !.

Very 1950's. As an American, I've always liked Austin products as my grandparents owned an Austin built Nash Metropolitan. If you can locate one in the UK, a video of a UK Metropolitan would be wonderful.

Very sweet and solid. I always liked the styling. The only thing that annoys me was that the steering wheel is on upside down. It's a common mistake. The spokes should point slightly downwards and the horn button can be rotated to any position. Oh dear, that's a very 'anorak' thing to say but what the heck. 😊👍

Lovely car we had one my parents bought it new year 1959 colour was a gray and off white really nice.thank you for featuring this car

I owned this car in the mid 1990s , the car had been recommissioned after storage and i brought it through a dealer in popular classics magazine

3:25 proves that the secret of great comedy is most definitely timing.

The switch to the left of the bonnet release is the heater fan switch, and the one to the right is cold air vent control.

Furious takes a bang on the head 🤕to demonstrate for us a potential hazard of 50s cars. Very relaxing and enjoyable. How could anyone with a hint of soul be annoyed when they get held up for a few miles by something so beautiful. I love the Farina Cambridge but I am really warming to these. A neighbour of ours had an A50 van which he ran everyday until 1978 /1979.

Great stuff, I remember these well from my childhood. My dad had a 1957 Morris Oxford, which was very similar, especially inside. My mother hated it as she always suffered from travel sickness in it. Eventually, he replaced it with a Triumph 2000.

I bought one of these in about 1968, for the sum of £5.00. I had just passed my driving test and had recently sold my Tiger Cub motorcycle. The car was better than my motorcycle because you could kiss and cuddle girls in comfort. Believe this or not, the rust in the passenger footwell was so bad I placed roof slates over the hole in its floor in an attempt to stop the elements from entering the car. When the winter arrived I fashioned a timber duckboard above the slates to keep feet dry. No, this car was not illegal, it had a legal MOT. One dark, windy and raining night returning from Manchester, the car skidded and left the road. It ploughed through a dry stone wall, then flew 30 feet into a farmers field before hitting a tree. The impact was lessened because the rear axle had engaged a large stone block in the field, so it had acted as an arrestor wire on an aircraft carrier. We both lived to tell this modest tale.

My Dad was an Austin man thru' and thru' (he had 5) and his '58 was identical to the car shown. His next was an A60 but he always said the A55 was his favourite. He sometimes let me use it and although my style of driving was very different to his (oops!) I loved it too! He did all his own mechanical repairs but the bodywork finally defeated him, which was typical of most cars at the time 😢. Thanx for the post - and the memories! The featured car is unbelievably immaculate. If I could afford it I'd park it next to my Passat just to look at and love.

What a beautiful example of the 50s stalwart! Great review as always.

This Austin reminds me of a 1950's Ford Fairlane, but in a very compact package. Something about British cars, especially classics like this, that I like a lot! Very nice review!

I think the upholstery is likely Rexine, very common back then.. and the door handle material you mentioned is Mazak, also known as Zamak..

Brilliant talk on all your cars and I like the way you mention the Events of History that were taking place when the car was manufactured. It puts its age in perspective. Please keep up the great videos and your narrations. Cheers, John (Australia)

This is truly beautiful and has to be one of my all time favourite cars along side the Ford Anglia and Consul. I'm 17 and I'm hoping to have a Austin Cambridge as my first car just like my grandfather :)

I owned a 57 A55 deluxe from Jan 1987 until July 1989 and it became my daily driver in June 87 when I wrote my then-current daily off. I bought it off my father, who had bought it from the bloke who had owned it from new and brought it with him from Birmingham when he emigrated to New Zealand (where I am) in 1970. The car had done all of 50340 miles, having basically sat except to get its 6 monthly Warrant of Fitness (WoF.....or MoT as you blokes know it). She had a few spots of minor rust, but otherwise was a straight and original car. It was Old English white on the roof, boot and bottom half of the doors and dark blue on the bonnet, top of the front wings and down the sides between the door windows and the swage line and between the swage line and the seal on the top of the guards at the rear. She had nearly every extra they offered - the twin wing mirrors, leather upholstery (blue) with a set of factory seat covers that were of the same colour but framed with vinyl and with a woven cloth piece on the seat and seat back, monogrammed blue Austin rubber floor mats, windscreen washers, front fog light, bumper over-riders, heater, clock and valve Austin-monogrammed radio.....but sadly no overdrive. The A55 was a beautiful car to drive, but as you say, she was no race horse. However, in the time I drive her as my main vehicle, I clocked up 27,000 miles and they were pretty much trouble free except for the exhaust pipe, brake master and slave being re-kitted, a couple of front bushes and getting the rear springs re-tensioned due to their sag. She had a range of around 210 miles (averaging about 26mpg), but her reserve tank could be engaged in an emergency.....and I should have tested this before I ran out in the middle of nowhere and tried to use it! I loved the car and there are many times when I have looked to replace it with another one since then, but sadly I have yet to come across one that does not need a power of work to get it up to WoF standard. By the way - under the lower parcel shelf under the dash, the knobs that read H / B / A are for Heater fan, Bonnet (as you know) and Air. Pull that last one and it opened a flap in the firewall behind the dash and fed air scooped up by the huge air vent under the chrome bonnet emblem ornamentation and fed it straight into the cabin - fantastic for wet days to keep air flowing around the car without windows being open.....although the front quarterlights were perfect to aid demisting at any time too!

this actually looks a lot like an early 60s Datsun Bluebird. gorgeous

You said it was a Manumatic but they didn't have a clutch pedal. Would I have preferred this to a slightly larger Ford Consul? Don't think so. You also forgot to mention THE highlight of 1957, the arrival of the Vauxhall Victor!

When these were launched the old 1200cc A40 was discontinued, except in Ireland where the A55 body was available with the 1200cc engine and called the A45

Never seen one before, looks both stylish and cute.

It's interesting to see how big the boot opening is in those 50s and early 60s cars, and that car producers later decided that having a flat lid was enough in the 70s and 80s, only to come back to their senses in the 90s.

One of our teachers a Mr Wilkshire had one in the early seventies that had well faded light blue paint that had no visible rust but had obviously seen better days.

Pure comedy gold at 3:28 😆 health & safety good job you had your woolly hat on!

My Father had a two tone green A55 back in the early 60's. Replaced an old Morris Minor so felt like a palace to an 8 year old. Unfortunately written off when hit black ice one night and left the road, Father got a broken leg. Odd the memories a video can bring back.

Awww what a delight of a car this is!!! Sweeeeet! Thanks for bringing us joy my friend!

Lovely little car but that rear badge is hilarious :D

We got those in Argentina in pick up version only, known as the Siam Argenta. Only for little time that was, then we got the Farina model as sedan, estate and also pick up, known as the Siam Di Tella 1500, Traveller and Argenta, respectively

Somebody apparently loved this little car for it to look so tidy sixty-odd years after leaving the factory. They must have sold reasonably well in Australia because I can clearly remember seeing them, as a car-crazed teenager, in the 1970s, usually piloted by the elderly. I think they must have been a hard sell against the larger, roomier and more powerful six-cylinder Holden. Holden held fifty percent of the market in the 1950s. Who would have thought back then that by the early 21st century that both Holden and Austin (Morris, Hillman, Humber, Singer, Wolseley, Riley, etc.) would be just memories.

A55? I guess BMC didn’t expect to be exported to the states? 😬 At least it’s on the rear end. Edit: the name was changed it seems to avoid being the butt of a few jokes. Sorry. I’ll see myself out.

The keys get in the way of the ashtray. The 1/2 ton truck/van version of this was still being made in 1973. They can't have sold many, because I was alive then, and they were quite a rare sight.

I'm getting one from a pal of mine in the new year. Fantastic ! Thanks for the video. Colin ( Wakefield ).

Sounds very much like my first car. a Wolseley 1500 Mk3 1963, for good reason!

A virtually new car for six kay, looks like should be museum piece, can't really loose if kept in a fairly modern integrated garage in the warmth.

My grandfather had a red over cream one. Used to drive it down from Wisbech to visit us in Surrey once or twice a year.

Iconic 50’s motoring lovely car

Great video, Matt. Lovely little motor

Jolly old days when driving was a pleasure and not a pressure.

That horn is just superb on this car. Much better than the toy-town style ones of most of today's models.

I've gotta workshop manual for that car in my collection of many car-related books & memorabilia, it's handbook #95 in the Piet Olyslager Motor Manuals series, I've also got more info about the car in the Graham Robson book about the Cars of BMC, and in Michael G.D. Allen's book about British Family Cars of the 50s, I've had these books since between 1986 and 1988. I just love that car, especially the duotone colour shade of white over grey, and that red interior goes perfectly with that exterior colour shade which as well as fits with a car that is as old as I am no less!!

Love this lil car! you do realize that it does have inner body panels in the boot so no worries to the rear wings should you be thrashing about inside :)

Great review Matt. We had a 1958 model back in the sixties. with overdrive. Unfortunately reverse gear would sometimes not engage. Very comfortable car though and I think wing mirrors look cool although deadly for Pedestrians!!

In 1962 my parents bought a brand new semi-detached house, in the north east, for £2300 (now worth about £150,000) So this A55 was about one third of the price of a new house. No wonder nobody I knew had a car on the drive. Excellent video of the first car I ever drove - my older brother had one in around 1970.

my Dad had a new one of these - he used to let me park it up when he came home from work! Two tone cream and red!

With the exception of the mascot the front end seems to be a car that's quite pedestrian friendly.

Brand new cutting edge 1957 British car boldly going right into 1950 American style. With outside chrome boot hinges last seen in the US on the 1949 Ford.

That's pretty impressive for a car from 50's. I wouldn't say 51 HP is that bad, since for example Cinquecento 0.7 had 30 horses in the 90's. Edit: oh, its 1.5, but still, i'm impressed

Perhaps the Manu-Matic control was placed in the left hand side for the Left Hand Drive markets for the USA & Canadian markets. Those markets an "automatic" option was a desirable feature.

I had one of these in 1974, it was a really good car, really comfy, reliable. It was slow, but all cars were slow back then. It would sit on 70mph all day no problem. Everything worked had a great heater, electric wipers rather than vacuum ones which I was used to. I put one if the first sanyo cassette stereos in it, had to change from positive earth to negative, made it a cruise mobile. It would have been heaps better with radials rather than the standard cross ply tyres, but in those days, that's all I could afford. Great cars.

Austin’s another one of my many favorite cars. ❤️😀

More of this!!! Keep up the good work! Greatings from Sthlm Sweden.

My dad had a lovely 1958 a55 in the late 60s. It had a sunvisor, ace wheel trims and a built in record player( nightmare!). He abandoned it a seized engine. He just didn't service it . If anyone knows where JCB 703 is you could post it here. JJ

My Dad had one exactly like that ,same colour and interior. Happy days.

1957. Less than 2 years before the Mini came out. Amazing.

Great review Matt lovely little car, Feel Good Friday

keep up the good work.looking at these classics.

Very few cars with overdrive on the A55. And the manumatic never had a clutch pedal or overdrive together. The clutch was actuated by electrics, pneumatics and hydraulics. The action of grabbing the knob end of gear lever sent an electric signal to a servo, which told the system that the clutch was disengaged- put it in gear or change gear when moving, finally releasing the gear lever end which re engaged the drive.

For that year it's select gear first, then handbrake. Nice car. 26 mpg.

Great stuff! Thanks for this, most interesting.

Despite the Commonwealth and the Cambridge being made here in Oz for a few years in the 60s I've never seen one. Pity as this is the epitome of nerdy cool. Luv it! 🤗

Built like a tank, love it.

Thank you very much indeed, like jaguar, Peugeot, and Austin, like in hire, right hand drive , beautifully classic car Watching from apartment in west java java island Indonesia

passed my test in one of these, loveley memory from 1961 august.very nice cars and i have also owned two a50s.(peter newbrook).

A bus company I drove for in the 1970's had one of these with a column stick semi-automatic gearbox. Selecting first could leave you in reverse. Definitely designed for a one-legged man with a good since of humour!

10:12 I got temporarily confused with that perspective initially thinking we were looking at the rear wheel and briefly thinking 'rear steering!?', then wondering if you were reversing, and why, but that doesn't work either :)

Hi Matt, great video of this Austin A55 Cambridge,nice car on the road,

Lovely car, so beautifully styled. That bang on the bonnet is all too familiar... happened to me twice on a Morris minor recently.

My Austin 1800 had the same indicator stalk - I found the flashing light too bright so I painted it :o ;)

I loved the quarter windows now deffuncked should bring them back

I didn't realise any Manumatic ones survived. On the vid. it shows how well it worked.

I thought the boot badge said ASS... but it acually says A55 😂

My grandfather replaced his fuel hungry P4 Rover 90 with an Austin A 55 IN THE 1970S. I never liked the look of these. Ok from the front end. But both the A50 and A55 were awkward from the rear end. Thank Zeus that Farina sorted it out with the next model.

I don't know if it's a sign of the times, but I read 'ass' on the rear or the car before I realised it was a55. Those two-tone looks are sublime too.

My Dad drove us to Rome in one of these in 1961, no Mont Blanc tunnel and camping all the way of course😊

Lovely little Car there Matt.

14:06: leaving Turner's Hill, northbound? I used to live in East Grinstead in the '90s and there was a Saab dealer on the B2028 then.

Did you test drive this yesterday? (22/4/21).Think I saw this outside the garage about 3pm when I was on the bus from Tunbridge Wells to Crawley.

Such a cool car. Frills and fun without the dangerous speed.

These were gorgeous cars!

My gfather bought one of these new, his last car. When he retired, he used to lend it to his local GP, as the doctor didn't possess a car (@1961) Nice looking for the time

Curious to see both mph and kph on the speedo - my contemporary Morris 1000 only has mph.