Rarities on this side of a Ferrari 250 GTO
07/07/2021
Admittedly, the Ferrari 250 GTO was produced just 36 times, but practically all the cars have survived. In contrast, the ADO16, normally known as the Austin or Morris 1100 or 1300, but also sold as MG, Wolseley, Riley, Vanden Plas and Innocenti, was produced around 2.1 million times.
However, very rare variants also left the factories during the eleven years of production. We would like to briefly introduce one of them here. Authi in Spain, for example, built its own versions primarily for the local market, which largely corresponded to the British specification but still had some differences.
The Austin 1300 Countryman was also produced as a Spanish version, but only just over 1600 vehicles were built due to a factory fire. After the restart of production, the estate version of the Austin 1300 was no longer built.
As the Countryman was almost a commercial vehicle due to its estate rear end, and in any case had many practical advantages, these cars were hardly spared and most of them are likely to have fallen victim to rust or accidents over the years.
Today, there are probably no more than a few dozen of these Authi Austin 1300 Countrymans in existence, which means that the vehicle pictured is probably rarer than the Ferrari 250 GTO.
P.S. A more comprehensive report on rare ADO16 derivatives will of course follow soon.
