1966 Wolseley 1100 Goes for a Drive

this car is sale at Sussex classics in Crawley down check out the link to their website down below and thank you to those guys for letting me drive it today if you haven't already hit like and subscribe on this channel and please do consider doing it it makes a massive difference to the channel thank you in 1962 British Motor corporation's amalgamated drawing office revealed the 16th project or the BMC a do 16 what's the world knew it the Austin 1100 this is not an Austin 1100 kinda what you're looking at is possibly the most badge-engineered car ever built probably this is a Woolsey 1100 in the early 60s as BMC had small enough a large proportion of the major players in the British Motor Industry Austin Morris Riley Woolsey for naming before a new badge-engineered single platform to cover all the major brands was needed so is it going this was given the task of designing this new project but in 1962 the Austin and Morris were revealed with this basic body shell with their own unique Austin and Morris faces to give him that look the Austin being a more working man basic version at the time of launch the Riley 1.5 / Walz e 1.5 there's a small cute round cuddly car from previous generation were still selling really well so they decided to keep pushing that one out in the market to differentiate things just a little bit longer so it wasn't until 1965 that this car came on to market with this new ballsy front grille Woolsey headlights Woolsey bumper all the other riders and more importantly Woolsey leather and wood it's quite clever I was just changing the bonnet and the grille and the front panels you completely change the character of the car now under here we have the same 1098 CC as you'll find in the rest of the a do 16 range except here we've got twin one-and-a-half-inch su carburetors so we get more lively performance and a smooth and running engine there are more power for a more refined customer I say more power it's still only 55 horsepower and 61 foot pallet talk so it's not earth shattering levels of performers here but it is still a nice series which makes it very easy to work on and anymore austin BMC garage could take care of it for you and if your home mechanic these days servicing and maintaining one of these it's an absolute doddle like the other cars in the ato 16 range you have the little winglets flying buttress and yeah yep pointy american-style wings or american influence wings but on a much less grand scale and a reasonably good boot which I'll come to in a second of course a nice center exit exhaust as well now we do have a luxury of a button or lockable button obviously our fairly sizable boot I don't believe it goes back not too far and you struggle to get a body in there but you just about manage it the seats don't fold down so if they've got rigor mortis already you're going to struggle with that but it's quite a wide boot and it's quite a deep lengthwise it's not very tall those be pretty up few suitcases and you get a week's shopping and there's no problem you do have the intrusion of this metal pipe from the fuel filler which is in no way even attempted to be disguised amusingly and also the the filler air vent as well going straight through your luggage compartment there ordinarily on a car today that would be quite well hidden under the floor something hard to lift you do have a full sized spare wheel I say full size is only twelve twenty twelve inch Steel's it's not taking a lot of space up and you have an su electric fuel pump I'm actually not sure if that would be original or not to have the electric pump in there if it would have been a manual pump originally but yeah we do have it I talk it in there as well a jack everything I just give you a certain amount more more storage space if you were to cram if you were in the subs down here as well as you sink into the luxurious all of the leather seats there's no creaking vinyl for you and your Austin or Morris this is a leather clad Wolvie the only creaking you ain't gonna get is from finest hide I was talking to someone this morning explaining how I was gonna be driving a car which is basically a larger more advanced more luxurious mini and they said what do you mean like that wouldn't take anything you drove the other day and I thought ah you know what it actually isn't it this is the the basic Austin but tart it up so you sink into these deep blue leather seats and honestly there's not enough blue leather in the world beneath me more blue brightly colored leather seats in cars because the black boring ones they do now are just so dreary these are comfortable they're not exactly bucket seats or armchairs or anything there's no headrest and though facility to install the headrest either however you do have a big thin rim steering wheel there's no power steering so you need that big wheel and beyond that we have our dashboard this is beautiful it's polished veneer wood is just delightful it's a very 60s design it's very kind of that 60s minimalist where Brutalism meets art and design the left-hand side of the dashboard is it just one big glove box lid and astonishingly shallow dashboard actually hid behind that it's only hands up there barely a finger depth it's tough spoke down into quite a convincing tea shelf because there's nothing without to open no rings for cups but you're not gonna be using it static because this is very slippery in the Centers of dividing the two halves of the dashboard we have a little ashtray and directly in front of me seen through the steering wheel there's just one neat little instrument dial this is very reminiscent of a 2 liter rover p6 strip speedo in the center going up to 100 a temperature gauge on the left and a fuel gauge on the right that's basically all you need in a mile ometer below there's not even a trip meter on the milometer which is interesting considering this is the luxurious version you've only got three instruments effect about three and a half instruments you expect maybe a tachometer or a resettable trip meter not just an ultimate automata showing the car paint in 32,000 miles that's astonishing really no wonder it's in such good condition to the right of our dolls with a nice neat square panel of nine circles the top row is three lights to embers in the blue for a headlight main beam choke and indicators below that we've got three more circles to Philippi switches either side for our lights and wipers and the ignition key in the center and below that's three more for a choke the ignition warning lights and a squirty button for the manual washers not electric it's plunger powered so the harder you push the button the hotter squirts out of the window this - top is lovely big thick padded thing with what looks like a speaker grille but doesn't actually have any holes in it because there's no radio in this car if the water radio you could fit the single speaker here in the top of the dashboard but instead of having a radio we've got a big storage tray below the entire width of the dashboards that side to side and I get quite useful size for odds and sods and bits and bobs and speaking of storage we even have door bins and both front doors quite big storage compartments and a course down the bottom we've got well this is actually quite a luxury to be perfectly honest we do have the heater controls off screen car and temperature max and mirror a fan speed to give us some blowing and ventilation because not every car even in the early 60s not every car was equipped with a heater and blower so that's pointless and because we're in a Wolsey we have a lovely wooden gear knob with the Wolsey badge in the top of it and nice from red because almost glowing / plastic perspex e/w in the steering wheel it's also nice that we have quarter lice it'll not whine double like on say Rovers and Jackie O's Bart's quarter lights nonetheless it's a nice big spacious front first have a look in the back climbing in the back of this car is again quite spacious I didn't think it looked like there was a lot of space but in fact there really is I'm a feet we've got a room this big big cutouts under the base of the seat so even though I've got my big boots on I can still get my toes under there and don't feel a talk about foster a phobic or crammed a lot good knee room essentially set up for me and I'm 511 and I've got a good Headroom even though the roof does begin sloping way just behind my head I've still got a good room I popped me at the moment it's is very nice now there's nothing in here at all we don't have opening quarter lights in the back doors but we do have opening main windows there are no seat belts and no door pockets absolutely no cup holders there's an ashtray down here same was the one and they wouldn't pick it where you can pull the top of this one and and we have the back of the static sieve out to the front there's one little light for the entire interior here above the driver's seat and that's your lot and a nice big party shop plenty of room for travel sweets that's kind of not surprising people didn't want to use seat belts at first because these old Kangol static things are a real pain to try and organize into any kind of useful position music onus was tasked with recreating the magic he had done in the form of a mini with the next size up of car and so he took that in hand and using a lot of the same clever innovative technologies and a few more he really went to town on this thing so like the mini we've got a nice stiff chassis which means that everything no rides well to start with he's using hydra-matic suspension again so we have this wonderful floating ride which at the same time as being beautifully soft and composed means that when you hit a corner you can actually have a bit of fun with it and the car will grip sometimes you've got decent tires on every wish luckily this one's got a set of new new tires on so he also decided to put disc brakes in the front which is quite an innovation at a time when drum brakes around was really the thing and something disc to the front was quite a luxury item especially on a brand like an Austin it also uses trick of using the transverse engine and gearbox to make much more space inside remind this car is smaller than a Cortina of the same period it's actually more space inside it I mentioned this car was badge-engineered and it was badge-engineered up the wazoo and seriously as well as the ones who you know about the Austin the Morris the Riley the Woolsey there was an inner Shinji version there was the Austin American from America obviously in fact there are so many I can't even remember I can't even remember them all I'll just pull over and give you the list it was built in two factories in Britain as built in Longbridge and Cowley there was CKD eaters in complete knockdown kitted to mortar and New Zealanders built in South Africa Australia Belgium Italy and Spain hanging on as a lay-by here I'll give you all the different variants so in 1967 1300s came L which the 1275 version and of course they kept making the 1100 at the same time as well so what we ultimately had and bear with me the Austin 1100 and 1300 and the 1300 GT with the Austin America the mg 1100 the mg 1275 and the mg 1300 the Morris 1100 the Morris 1300 the Riley Kestrel our various versions the vanden plas princess of various versions 1100 and 1300 the walls 1100 and the aussie 1300 our mower I think that's everything ultimately they built two point 1 million 8006 teams they're only forty four thousand of those or the Woolsey version and today there are about 21 left on the road which is an astonishing decline although as a bonus did the engineering work on this car the actual exterior for the entire a do 16 family was actually drawn but Pininfarina and the controls in this thing are absolute delight the steering is not power assisted in any way but it is very very direct feel not heavy at all you are just totally connected with the car even those the massive massive rim the pedals are slightly offset to your left which is a little bit awkward I guess because of the position of the steering column and with these boots on I do struggle to get the clutch all the way down and have to try and work quite hard to remember to only put on my big toe of my left foot onto the clutch otherwise my foot bashes into other things which is a little bit awkward looking around the car there's lots of BMC parts pin items control knobs on the heater the door handles and that kind of stuff the mirrors a genius bit of marketing that's four different cars in your range which are ultimately owned in the same car unfortunately it doesn't mean it's one person or someone unfortunate means of a customer doesn't like the basis of your car to start with you're not going to snag them with any level of any of your brands unfortunately not only does this car have the indicators on the right-hand side it has one of my favorite BMC features which is the little glowing green light in the end of the indicator stalk which BMW drivers and how many drivers today would not forget to indicate it there and stalking lit up every time they made a turn also glowing it's the Wolsey logo on the front of the grill when the lights go on so is a little badge which is unbelievably sweet I love that the gear selector while the gear stick really it's nothing ice and the gear shift is well-placed it's a really really long stick but it does put it just right in the correct place for your hand it's quite a short throw gearbox as well it's a little slightly stiff linkage going through the gears but a nice simple H patent so you're not going to get lost it's a very comfortable car they hydro elastic ride cover with these nice deep leather seats and that wooden - makes it all feel and really quite popular unlike the Bund and flour version you don't get over the wooden picnic tables on the back of the seats but since you've really sit there saying the kids are gonna play with them and scratch them up with crayons you do have the utterly pointless bloomers on the end of the wings deal going on again which because this is quite a short wing you can sort of see a bit of something now and then kind of just don't make out what's going on in them and that twin carb effort does give you a little bit more return of speed just makes it feel a bit more what Pepe it may not be big numbers but is only about eight hundred and thirty kilos I think in terms of weight of the cast it's not going to shift a great deal of a mass while though despite that lack of mass nought to sixty is still 18 seconds and top speed is 85 miles an hour Furlow the I do 16 as a project round from 1962 all the way to 1974 the wolves itself only went between 1965 and 1973 and it wasn't the last of the Wolves II so that honor goes to the 1820 to the wedge but that only carried his name as a Woolsey a 7 months after which it reverted to being in Austin and a car company which it existed since 1901 as part of the Vickers family was no more your I really like this car and a slice are funny funny dirty kind of way it's actually enormous fun and really nice to drive I could see myself going for Carla this I hope you've enjoyed this little trip into bmc's history with this Woolsey and thank you for watching if you enjoyed it please hit like and subscribe if you haven't keep it to yourself sorry I say sorry for the as I apologize it explained about the audio in the wooden picket video the thought radio might come using is decided it won't work beyond a couple of meters away from the camera it's got to go back to Road to be investigated hopefully it's been located a I've kept it closer to the camera to avoid that problem

Channel: furiousdriving

Views: 102,563

Rating: 4.9054632 out of 5

Keywords: Wolseley, Wolseley 1100, ADO 16, ADO16, BMC, British Motor Corporation, classic car, car, retro, vintage, old timer, classic, British, BL, BMH, car blog, car vlog, test drive, road test, car review

Id: k4htIkYXV7o

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019