The Gipsy was produced in wide variety of body styles to suit various tasks
The Austin Gipsy was announced in 1958 as a replacement for the Champ which had been produced for the Royal Army. The small utility vehicle was intended as a commercial rival to the increasingly popular Land Rover and was hoped to sell to both civilian and military customers. The first vehicle produced with an independent trailing arm rubber suspension on all four wheels it was designed to cope with off-road use and serve as a capable cross-country machine. With a rugged box section chassis and an all steel body it was powered by the A70 2199-cc four cylinder engine. An optional, smaller 2178-cc diesel engine was available (the unit would also be fitted in countless London taxis) that offered better economy and longer life. A four-speed transmission with an unsynchronized first gear worked in conjunction with a transfer case that could allow use in 4-wheel high and low modes. The Flexitor rubber trailing arm suspension on all four wheels was designed to deal with the rough road conditions and provide a serviceable ride in civilian usage.
A Gipsy procured by the Home Office for use following a national catastrophe
The Champ had proven the utility of using an independent front and rear suspension for use in difficult conditions and it was determined that the Gipsy suspension should offer comparable performance at lower cost for series production. The wishbone suspension of the Champ was abandoned due to the cost to manufacture the complex system and a desire to avoid the routine maintenance that would have been required to ensure reliable operation. An answer was found when Austin engineers observed a light military trailer that was equipped with a cost effective Flexitor rubber suspension that required no lubrication and decided to adopt a similar suspension for use in the Gipsy.
Rugged suspension offered surprisingly agile off-road utility
The Flexitor suspension used pre-compressed rubber cylinders which were chemically bonded to a tubular steel housing and to an axial shaft on the end of which was mounted the trailing arm carrying each wheel. All deflections of the arm resulting from impacts were absorbed by the twisting of the rubber. The units incorporated self-dampeniing, but the addition of hydraulic shock absorbers all round provided extra control. Spring failure was virtually impossible (in theory) and tests showed that it had a life of over three times greater than that of conventional leaf springs. Eventually a conventional leaf spring suspension was offered as an option that promised greater simplicity and more reliability in actual usage.
Sold in several variants and an array of body types, the Austin Gipsy was successful but was never a legitimate rival to the more popular Land Rover. Military sales were never comparable to the Land Rover, but several hundred vehicles were purchased by the Home Office and placed in long term storage for use in the event of a national catastrophe (such as nuclear war) but were eventually sold off in the 90s in essentially new condition. The BL merger doomed the Gipsy and production was discontinued in 1968 so as not to scavenge sales from the more commercial viable Land Rover.
By Johnny Oversteer
Information courtesy of austingipsy.net
'Profile – The Austin Gipsy' have 2 comments
July 4, 2018 @ 1:45 pm Alan Bosley
Thank you for the article. I have used 5 Austin Gipsies over hundreds of thousands of miles. My present one, owned for 45 years, has done 280k miles. It has been rebuilt but is now in regular service. I use it for towing in preference to my Defender as it has better handling and is reliable. The gearbox weakness ever with LandRover does not occur in the Gipsy range. Mine is a 1966LWB SE version. It has hydraulic tipping of the trailer and a hydraulic winch.
There was never a BMC Leyland merger, it was a simple take over and BMC were the losers.
July 10, 2018 @ 12:30 pm john
I have always liked the Gypsy, They always seemed finished off better, LR never did fix their 1st/2nd gear selection issue from the series 2 right up to the V8 93/94 discovery gear boxes, and because of that I have always bought either Jeeps of Mitsubishi’s. The Champ was about the best 4×4 back then and BMC were very innovative I wonder what marvels we would have seen if BL had not wiped out the competition by their so called merger,