Austin Seven Swallow

About the Austin Seven Swallow

In 1927, William Lyons, co-founder of the Swallow Sidecar Company, saw the commercial potential of producing a re-bodied Austin 7. Lyons commissioned the talented coach-builder Cyril Holland to produce a distinctive open tourer: the Austin Seven Swallow.

With its bright two-tone colour scheme and a style befitting more expensive cars of the time, together with its low cost (£175), the Swallow proved popular and was followed in 1928 by a saloon version: the Austin Seven Swallow Saloon.

Approximately 3,500 bodies of various styles were produced up until 1932, when Lyons started making complete cars under the SS brand.

Such was the demand for the Austin Seven Swallows that Lyons was forced to move in 1928 from Blackpool to new premises in Coventry. It was, in part, the success of the Swallows that laid the foundations of what was to become, by 1945