1953-56 Austin-Healey

The low-slung 1953-56 Austin-Healey sports car still looks sensational. It fit beautifully into America’s new sports car market of the early 1950s.

 

At $2,985, the Austin-Healey cost more than the popular but slower MG, which had 1930s styling, but much less than the sleek-but-troublesome, higher-line Jaguar XK-120. The British Austin-Healey stood merely 49 inches high. Even sporty American cars towered above it and looked clumsy in comparison.

 

Sports cars in the early 1950s had the same cachet in America as good wine, fine cameras and fast imported bicycles. Average Joes ignored all that and bought a Ford, Chevy or Dodge and went bowling.

 

White-collar executives who were foreign car buffs drove their sports car to work in the early 1950s and raced it on weekends in amateur events. It was an innocent era, before sports car racing became costly and dominated by professional “amateur” drivers in sports cars too specialized for street use.

 

The Austin-Healey was a sensation when unveiled at the 1952 London Motor Show and was named International Show Car of the Year at the 1953 New York Auto Show. It was created by Donald Healey, a top British race-rally driver and builder of low-volume sports cars that carried his name. Few Americans had heard of him, although he was fairly well known in Europe.

 

Healey had been involved with the 1951-54 Nash-Healey sports car, built to boost the stodgy image of America’s faltering Nash car operation. The Nash-Healey had a modified Nash engine and initially did well in racing. But only 506 were built because the car was costly and Nash was known for family autos.

 

Most Nash-Healeys were sold in this country, but the majority of Americans wanted a sports car with a “foreign engine” and racy continental European image—a major reason the first Corvette flopped after its late 1953 introduction. Mercedes hadn’t started building sports cars yet after the war, and the handful of exorbitantly expensive Ferraris sent to America were mostly designed for racing.

 

The entrepreneurial Healey had expanded the small car-producing facility he had built in Warwick, England, in 1946, to help produce far more Nash-Healeys than were sold, and the car’s low sales left him without much to do.There was little demand in war-torn Europe for sports cars, so Healey focused on the large, lucrative U.S. auto market. He bought parts from major automakers because he had little money for making new components such as engines.

 

Only 781 Healey models—not including the Nash-Healey and Austin-Healey—reached America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. One was a “sports roadster” shown at the 1949 New York Auto Show. But it cost $7,500, when a Cadillac convertible was $3,442.

 

Healey designed his own chassis and suspension. All his hand-built cars used a rugged chassis and a short wheelbase. One of his best-known early cars was the rakish, race-winning Healey Silverstone roadster. But it was a low-volume model virtually unknown  to anyone but some sports car buffs in this country.

 

The Austin-Healey constituted Donald Healey’s first big break. Healey was in his 50s when that car was introduced at the London show. He saw the need for a moderately priced, high-volume sports car for Americans—one that fit between the MG and Jaguar.

 

Healey took his Nash venture profits and built a prototype sports car to fill that need. He gave young auto body engineer Gerry Coker an idea of how he wanted the car to look after seeing nifty tiny car models Coker created. Incredibly, Coker had never styled a production car and would never style another—although he reportedly later designed the clever two-way station wagon tailgate for Ford.

 

Coker’s sports car body was simply stunning. It had sweeping lines, an impossibly long hood, tiny cockpit, small “button” taillights, little chrome and distinctive shell-shaped grille. It also had wire wheels and a rakish tilt-back windshield that made it look like was doing 100 mph while sitting at a curb.

 

There were no roll-up windows, and outside door handles were left off so they wouldn’t disrupt the car’s sleek lines. Doors were opened by reaching through a plastic side curtain opening and pulling a door release inside the car. The sexy Jaguar had the same setup.

 

The first Austin-Healey looked so good that the last one sold here in 1967 had virtually the same styling, although it didn’t look as pure or pretty, with outside door handles and such. However, later models were more civilized and better-equipped, besides having a six-cylinder engine. The car would have lasted at least into the 1970, but British Motor Corp. (BMC) dropped it because it didn’t want the expense of having the Austin-Healey meet new federal regulations.

 

The first Austin-Healey was called the “Healey 100” at the London show because it had topped 100 mph (at 117 mph) before shown there. Healey had hoped for a higher speed, but there was no time to get more from the car. Actually, many U.S. cars couldn’t even reach 100 mph then.

 

Healey didn’t much like the windshield, which could be folded down flat or tilted back from vertical to a rakish angle. But he knew it would attract American buyers.

 

Meanwhile, Healey came up with a simple, strong box-section frame. He used the British Ausin A90 sedan with its stout four-cylinder engine as a rough starting point.

 

Healey’s sports car caught the eye at the London show of Sir Leonard Lord, head of the Austin car company’s parent, England’s recently formed giant BMC. Lord also saw a rich U.S. market for a rakish, affordable, reliable two-seater. He realized that the Healey 100 was simple, rugged and designed around the A90, which wasn’t selling well. However, the A90’s 2.7-liter, 90-horsepower engine had potential, and Lord saw it could be used in the new sports car.

 

Lord quickly made a deal with the delighted Healey to have BMC make a mass-produced version of the “Healey 100” show car at its big Austin factory in Longbridge. The production model was hardly changed from the show car. It was renamed the “Austin-Healey 100,” although it also was called the “100/4” because of its four-cylinder engine. Part of the deal was an unprecedented 20-year contract to use Healey’s name on the car and to make it on a royalty basis.

Besides the A90 engine, Healey borrowed parts from that Austin model to hold down costs. One was a four-speed manual transmission with top gear blanked off because it wasn’t needed with the high-torque engine. Electric overdrive was put on second and third gears, effectively giving a driver five forward gear ratios. The front suspension, rear axle and smaller parts also came from the A90. Production began in the spring of 1953.

 

At under $3,000, the Austin-Healey 100 was a steal. It was costlier than the  new, rather awkwardly styled Triumph TR2 sports car but priced comfortably below the Jaguar XK-120. It did 0-60 mph in 10.3 seconds, which made it quick for its day. Production began in the spring of 1953, and the car was an instant hit in America.

 

The original car was built through the autumn of 1955. By then, it had a reputation for being almost unbreakable. However, drawbacks, which remained throughout entire Austin-Healey production, included scant ground clearance and excessive engine heat entering the cockpit.

 

The original (1953-55) Austin-Healey 100 with the blanked-out first gear was factory coded the BN1. It found 10,688 buyers. There were 3,924 1955-56 “BN2” versions with a four-forward-gear manual transmission and overdrive, built in 1956.

 

Healey loved racing, and knew wins would help sell Austin-Healeys. With BMC producing the Austin-Healey 100, he had time to develop the 110-horsepower 100M, with duo-tone paint and some body and chassis modifications. There also was the rarer 132-horsepower 100S competition model, which had a stripped all-aluminum body without bumpers, four-speed gearbox without overdrive, modified engine and all-disc brakes. It was built mainly to win races, but could be driven on roads.

 

Officially, 1,159 100Ms were produced, but the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust says only 640 were made. Only 50 100S models reportedly were built. Those models, especially the 100S, did well in international racing with their extra horsepower and body and chassis modifications. Prices for the 100S have soared in recent years. It’s now valued at $400,000-$600,000. A regular Austin-Healey 100 is valued at $30,000-$50,000.

 

The slightly larger Austin-Healey 100 Six arrived in 1956 with a 102-horsepower six-cylinder engine. But it was heavier and less lively than the original Austin-Healey 100, and styling was compromised a bit.

 

The 1953-56 model is the one to get.