The Austin Motor Company was founded in Longbridge, Birmingham by Herbert Austin, the former manager of the Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company in 1905.
Around the 1920s the company produced the Austin 7 , an inexpensive, small and simple car and one of the earliest to be directed at a mass market. At one point it was built under licence by the fledgeling BMW.
A largely independent United States subsidiary operated under the name American Austin Car Company from 1929 to 1934; it was revived under the name "American Bantam" from 1937 to 1941.
Austin automobile and engine designs were copied by the fledgling Nissan of Japan. That company produced Austin-derived models into the early 1960s.
In 1952 Austin merged with the Nuffield Organisation (parent company of Morris) to form the British Motor Corporation (later British Leyland).
In 1982, the by now greatly shrunk British Leyland company was renamed Austin Rover Group, with Austin acting as the "budget" brand. However, the continuing bad publicity associated with build and rust problems on the Metro, Maestro and Montego meant that the badge was dropped, and the last Austin-badged car was built in 1987.
The rights to the Austin badge are owned by MG Rover, currently in administration, the heirs to the empire that was once BMC and BL. There are no plans to resurrect it. Austin's historic assembly plant in Longbridge was, until its collapse in April 2005, MG Rover's only remaining plant.
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