AUSTIN HEALEY 3000 Pound sterling for pound avoirdupois, it would be hard to equal the bargain offer
Pound sterling for pound avoirdupois, it would be hard to equal the bargain offered by Austin-Healey between 1952 and 1968. Their handsome four-cylinder 2.6 litre 100, capable of over 100mph for a basic £750, developed into the equally good-looking six-cylinder 3000, capable of 120 mph for £762. They went racing, rallying and recorad-breaking with enormous success, they sold in thousands, and brought great pleasure to a great number of people. Yet it might never have happened, but for a lot of surplus engines at Austin's Longbridge factory, and the imagination of Donald Healey and his son Geoffrey. The car's beginnings were humble. When production of Austin's somewhat unpredictable A90 Sports was stopped in 1950, many pushrod oily, twin-De Luxe 2 + 2: The 3000 Convertible with wind-up windows, one-piece removable top, and two extra seats brought comparative luxury to the "big Healey's" sporting image. This model was in production for eight years, from 1959 to 1967 carburettor 2,660cc engines and gear-boxes intended for it became redundant. Sir Leonard Lord, Austin's dynamic chief, wanted them used up, and Donald Healey, driver/manufacturer and 1931 Monte Carlo Rally winner, found the answer. Knowing sports cars through and through, he had a clear formula in mind for a successful model. It had to be fast, good looking, reliable, easily serviced, and cheap—which was where those A90 engines came in. Healey and his son Geoffrey quickly laid down a design around the four-cylinder engine and gearbox, giving it a frame underslung at the rear, with box-section side members, coil-and-wishbone independent front suspension, and semi-elliptics at the rear. A floor lever replaced the A90's column gearchange, and clean, shapely two-seater bodywork was built in steel, with a pleasant grille and flush-set headlights. They called it the Healey 100, and although it was squeezed in at short notice on a badly located stand, it attracted unprecedented public attention at the 1952 Earls Court Motor Show.
Dollar orders poured in, Austins quickly took on full production responsibilities, and overnight the car became the Austin-Healey 100. Quantity produc-tion began in 1953 and design refine-ments followed—a four-speed plus overdrive transmission, improved suspension and brakes, and a more powerful, 125mph, disc-braked competi-tion model, the 100S, which finished third at Sebring in 1954, and took class wins there and in the Mille Miglia in 1955. Although fast and undeniably fun, all Austin-Healey fours were some-what crude and cramped, and their engines notably "buzzy", and September 1956 brought a welcome change when the old A90 engine was replaced by the BMC six-cylinder 2,639cc C-series unit. Apart from having 102bhp compared with the four's 90, the big gain in the new 100-Six was in flexibility and smoothness, while an enlarged cockpit giving 2 + 2 seating, improved hood .
