Steve Harper’s time at Longbridge.
Noted Car Designer Steve Harper began his career at Longbridge as an Austin Apprentice. Here he takes us on a whistle-stop tour of his time served working for the firm… Prepare for a few laughs on the way!
eg. Hoisting Minis in the Rectification Area.
"Now, rather than scramble around on the floor under the cars or have dangerous pits everywhere on the factory floor, there were these chain joists with a big hook on the end.
The simplest way to get underneath a Mini was to attach the hook to the large hole in the front subframe and literally pick the car up into the air, so it stood at jaunty angles or even vertically, balancing on its rear bumper.
When rectified the cars were driven out to a nearby car park, next to the huge multi-story car park that towered above Lowhill Lane. In the likelihood that the parts required were not immediately available, the cars were either pushed or driven outside, into this adjoining car park.
Over time, the cars were parked literally bumper to bumper. If you had to go and retrieve a car it was a tight job to get the car out. You soon learned how to do that: by putting the handbrake on, turning the car on full lock, ‘revving the taters’ off it and dropping the clutch, the result was the car jumping out of the squeeze sideways.
This was a very useful technique, especially as the tarmac underneath was extremely shiny, so very easy to do.
Theory into practice…
However, one Saturday morning at Safeway’s in Harborne, a frustrated little old lady had her Mini trapped in between two large cars and was unable to get it out.
Being a nice guy, I offered her my assistance. I used my well-practiced technique of handbrake on, full lock, drop the clutch at 5000 revs and the car leapt out.
The look of shock and horror on the old lady’s face was something I’ll never forget. Her poor little Mini. She had only probably driven at 25mph and never imagined that you could go that fast or move in that transverse direction. I don’t recall her thanking me for retrieving her car."
Steve Harper: The Austin Apprentice:-
"It was a warm September day in 1974, when I first entered the gates of the North Works and into Herbert Austin’s imported old wooden Canadian Lodge, which was the Apprentice Training School on Longbridge Lane. I had become the third generation of my family to work at ‘The Austin’.
From my great uncle who’d started in the 1930s, to my father in the late 1950s, and with little help from any school careers master, I joined the workforce....."
Full Story here:-
https://www.aronline...-at-longbridge/
Edited by mab01uk, 05 September 2022 - 11:58 AM.
