Austin Westminster A110 - a rare 1960s British classic saloon car

Austin Westminster A110 The Austin Westminster A110 story doesn’t begin with the A110 but instead followed the A90, 95 and the 99. The cars were Austin’s saloon and estate offering put in place to take the market position of the A70 Hereford, which if you’ve never seen before, is a much more rounded car in the style of those early mid-century Austin county cars. Now at first, the new breed of post-war Westminster cars had shared that rounded styling, but with the arrival of the A99, a new Pinin farina designed bodywork arrived in 1959, heralding a new shape for the Westminster. The step up from the 95/105 feels quite dramatic, with the new addition of the straight 6 C-Series engine, power assisted brakes and various other modern touches; which really helped bring the car into a new place for the 60s market. Just two years after that pleasing move forward in design, the A110 comes to market in the autumn of 1961 which is the car we’re testing today. Please do note though, the model we’re out in is the MK2, which launches in the spring of 1964. The changes from the 95 to the 110 are not dramatic, it’s more of a facelift than a complete reinvention. It still sported the same basic unit-construction chassis monocoque arrangement as the A99 and the engine is still the trusty C-Series engine. However, by this point, they’ve learnt some tricks from the Austin-Healey 3000 which has the same engine and they’ve learnt that by making changes to the cylinder head, changing the camshaft profiling and going for a twin-bore exhaust system they could achieve 120bhp, in the A99, it’s advertised as 102bhp - quite the step up. Performance wise, we’re now exceeding 100mph with a max speed of 102mph, 0-60 in just over 13 seconds and a rather miserable fuel consumption of 19mpg. The extended wheelbase and tweaks to the chassis allowed for more space in the boot, which is definitely a must on a car this size and improved road handling. There were a few more changes and additions to this model over the outgoing Wesminster and these included the optional power steering made available from the summer of 1962, the column change being replaced with a floor change in manual models and a restyled facia and twin exhaust system. The Westminster came to a close just before the end of the decade to be replaced with the Austin 3 litre, having produced 26,105 A110 Westminsters, across both MK1 and MK2. it is worth giving a nod before I head off to the Wolseley 6/110 MK II which is of course the paralell model to this. that ran until 1968 but sported a different front end style and interior trim.