Within Austin's own home-market range, only the ARQ and ARR Ruby De Luxe Saloons and the AC and ACA Pearl Cabriolets came with bumpers fitted as standard. The Ruby's front number-plate mounting therefore varied by specification: on the bumper-less Standard, or "Fixed Head", model, the plate was bolted directly to the apron; on the De Luxe, with its sunshine roof, it was usually attached to the bumper. Late-model Rubies without bumpers, together with Opals, Open Road Tourers and vans, had, almost certainly as a safety feature, detachable starting handles,
Austin is also believed to have offered bumpers as an option in some export markets: an APE Two-seater survives in South Africa with a set fitted, and a build record for a car dispatched to Argentina mentions them. The precise specification of export cars did vary, but they can generally be recognised by an air cleaner, a 4-blade fan, and 16-inch wheels; some were left-hand drive too. Additionally, the Two-seater APE could be fitted with an optional bench seat.
Owners in the 1920s and 1930s could also choose from a wide array of aftermarket offerings. The most ubiquitous were manufactured by the Wilmot Breeden Company at its Birmingham factory. Advertised as being made from high-grade "Sheffield spring steel", these came complete with Austin Seven-specific clamp-on brackets that required no chassis drilling. They were supplied with fitting instructions--a surviving example for the Austin Seven is reproduced below.
In stark contrast to light and flexible spring steel, one bumper design offered for the Austin Seven Swallow by William Lyons' Blackpool-based Swallow Coachbuilding Company used cast iron. Weighing in excess of 20 kg, this was a massive addition to a car weighing under 400 kg--an accessory whose burden was felt on every incline and whose levered weight, it's reported, frequently strained the delicate front chassis horns. This structural stress, combined with the brittle nature of thin cast iron, may help to explain why so few sets survive. One known variation of the Swallow bumper carried an integral, sculpted Swallow badge. A rather lovely affair, two inches wide in chromium-plated brass, and decorated with red and two shades of blue enamel.
In her memoir, A Swallow Summer, preserved by the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, Connie Teather recalls the company supplying bumpers and other equipment. She describes prolonged negotiations over prices, with William Lyons joining the argument before everyone finally shook hands. Swallow's resistance to its suppliers' prices was apparently at least as formidable as it hoped the bumpers would be.
The cast-iron design was not confined to the Austin Swallow; it was also fitted to Swallow bodies on some Standard cars. In the Standard Motor Club's account of a 1930 Standard Swallow Big Nine, owner Gary Edwards describes ribbed cast-iron bumper blades supplied by Wilmot Breeden. He dates the introduction of front and rear bumpers as standard equipment to around September 1930.