For an additional outlay of thirty shillings (£1.50) the 10 hp model would be fitted with a sprag to prevent it running backwards. They were both available with either a Tonneau or a Phaeton body with either pneumatic or solid tyres. There were to be two models, 5 hp and 10 hp. By Austin had issued his first catalogue. The company had been formed in March 1901. Wolseley was the largest British motor manufacturer and Austin's reputation was made. When Austin's five-year contract officially ended in 1906 they had made more than 1,500 cars. Thomas and Albert Vickers, directors of Vickers and Maxim, Britain's largest armaments manufacturer, had much earlier decided to enter the industry at the right moment and, impressed by Austin's achievements at WSSMC, they took on his enterprise. The first Wolseley cars sold to the public were based on the "Voiturette", but production did not get underway until 1901, by which time the board of WSSMC had lost interest in the nascent motor industry. The 1901 Wolseley Gasoline Carriage featured a steering wheel instead of a tiller. A further four-wheeled car was made in 1900. The third Wolseley car, the four-wheeled Wolseley "Voiturette" followed in 1899. It was not successful and although advertised for sale, none were sold. It was a three-wheeled design (one front, two rear) featuring independent rear suspension, mid-engine and back to back seating for two adults. In 1897 Austin's second Wolseley car, the Wolseley Autocar No. Later he found that another British group had bought the rights and he had to come up with a design of his own, having persuaded the directors of WSSMC to invest in the necessary machinery. During the winter of 1895–96, working in his own time at nights and weekends, he made his own version of a design by Léon Bollée that he had seen in Paris. About 1895–96 he became interested in engines and automobiles. After his five-year contract with The Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company ended Austin founded The Austin Motor Company Limited.Īustin had been searching for other products for WSSMC because sale of sheep-shearing machinery was a highly seasonal trade. Wolseley's board had decided not to enter the business and Maxim and the Vickers brothers picked it up. The cars and the Wolseley name came from Austin's exploratory venture for The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company Limited, run since the early 1890s by the now 33-year-old Austin. The managing director was Herbert Austin.
The Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company of Adderley Park Birmingham was incorporated in March 1901 with a capital of £40,000 by Vickers, Sons and Maxim to manufacture motor cars and machine tools. Once the sheep shearing company had decided they would not pursue their automobile interest, an approach was made and agreement quickly reached. Maxim made use of a number of suggestions made by Austin in Maxim's activities at his works in Crayford, Kent. Hiram Maxim, inventor of the machine gun that bears his name, and by then a member of the combine Vickers Sons & Maxim, had consulted Herbert Austin at The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company Limited in the late 1890s a number of times in relation to the design of flying machines, which Maxim was developing and constructing. The Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company Limited Piccadilly regional offices, completed 1921
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