Tag Archiv: healey
***UPDATE*** Sold for £639,900 (CDN$ 1,310,246) inc. premium
This weekend Bonhams will offer arguably the most desirable Austin-Healey ever produced: Donald Healey’s personal 1953 Austin-Healey 100/’100S’ Coupé at their The Bond Street Motor Car Sale in London.
The car was built as a styling exercise executed by Gerry Coker who designed the Austin-Healey 100 and Sprite. In his own words he added “lift the rear deck to make the hard top more proportionate”. Futhermore he also chose the original color scheme of Carmine Red with a black roof.
Inside the car recieved a bespoke interior with a central Becker radio and speaker built into the dashboard. Futher interesting details include rotary A55 heater switches, lockable sliding windows and a locking mechanism for the doors.
Donald Healey took particular interest in the Coupe. He registered it ‘ONX 113’ and used it as a support vehicle at events like the Mille Miglia. Throughout its life it was upgraded by the factory to 100S specification.
Having being owned by the Arthur Carter collection since 1972, ‘ONX 113’ is in remarkably original condition and totally unsymettric like many of the Healeys we see in the shop.
Bonhams will offer ‘ONX 113’ at their upcoming The Bond Street Motor Car Sale on 6 Dec 2015 in London alongside a remarkable collection of British sports cars.
Once our BJ8 project was stripped bare and blasted, we then had a unique opportunity to address the weakness of the original design and deal with any present or future problems.
We trusted Steven Gicas to do the job. Trained by Roy Moore for Jetstream, he has put together several of the Hugh’s brothers Healeys and will be working on more Healeys in the future.
After cutting away the inner, intermediate and outer sills, we decided under Steven’s guidance to replace all 10 floor board pieces. These were simply tacked onto the chassis by the factory with little regard to corrosion protection between the floor and chassis. Steven applied weld-through primer the entire ‘sandwich’ surface which when combined with seam sealer should outlast the intended lifetime of the structure. This also refreshed the flanges that the inner sill attaches to.
We also spent considerable money to get the fenders, doors, sills, shut panels and hinge panels sufficiently lined up. Steven weighed down the chassis to mimic the 690 lb engine and transmission, but I would recommend leaving the engine in for this process otherwise.
This leaves the Healey ready for Trevor Black to do final bodywork and prepare it for one his superb topcoats. It will be going back to its original hue of dark Britsh Racing Green GN25.
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Restoration
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Restoration
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Restoration
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Restoration
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Restoration
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Restoration
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Restoration
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Restoration
It took a considerable amount of effort and time to get our Austin Healey 3000 completely stripped, so we are taking every step to make this a thorough chassis restoration.
So, we loaded it up on a very impressive rotisserie and send it to Todd at Fox Kustoms for media blasting who did a stellar job which was aided by a balanced setup.
With bare metal on our hands time was of the essence, it had to get protected immediately which meant a marathon epoxy prime which took three hours of continuous spray. This is probably the most intense chassis to prime/paint of all the British cars.
Today, sitting in a dark green hue of Valspar 999DTM, the Healey was finally towed by Sean at Sharky’s off to Stickler’s Speed Shop where inner, intermediate and outer sills will be completely replaced as well as a plethora of other work.
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Media Blast Chassis
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Media Blast Chassis
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Media Blast Chassis
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Media Blast Chassis
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Media Blast Chassis
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8 Media Blast Chassis
Following advice from Earl Kagna we started with the doors on our BJ8 restoration which led to the removal of the dash pad, front window and fenders.
This alone yielded numerous surprises including a sample of the original British Racing Green under the dash pad. Furthermore the car was very straight with all the inner fenders nicely intact.
Typical for this model, we were forced to immediately call Austin Healey AutoFarm Canada and order the inner, intermediate and outer sill pieces which will correct this car back to 100%.
With all the fenders off we carefully pried the center aluminum shroud off the car, eventually defeating the mastic plant resin to reveal the engine and chassis superstructure in one fell swoop.
Among three Healey 100s that came from the Island for the VanDuesen show was this spectacular, restoration debut, 100M from owner Chris Yarrow.
This is what you could call a factory 100M which was shipped with competition features directly from the factory.
After subsequent purchase from the Daniel Doucette collection alongside a very original XK120, this 100M was restored by Rudi & Company with paint and body work by Coachwerks Automotive Restoration, chrome by Electroshine Metal Refinshers Ltd and upholstery by Tom Steger and Style’s Auto Upholstery.
Devil is in the details and Chris has gone to great lengths to get this car period correct.
