Austin Healey 3000

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Fancy owning a motorsport legend for road and track use? Paul Davies looks at true classics that made their names on stages and circuits, and still provide fine drives today

The Big Healey never had its really big moment. Flying Finn Rauno Aaltonen loved the hairy six-cylinder sports car, and he desperately wanted to win the RAC Rally in one. So desperate in fact, he was prepared to pass over the all-conquering Mini Cooper S and for 1967 – the final year of production for the Healey – persuaded BMC competitions manager Peter Browning to let him have one last try in the beast. Rauno should have known better than anyone how the odds were stacked against him. Two years previously he’d snatched RAC Rally victory from the works Healey of Timo Makinen when the rear drive sports car just could find traction on a icy Welsh hill: Aaltonen’s front-driveMini made it to the top, the Squealy didn’t. The following year Bengt Soderstrom’s Ford Lotus Cortina had been the victor, but Rauno still wanted that win in the Big Healey. But the big confrontation – Aaltonen’s Healey was the most powerful ever with triple Weber carbs on an all-alloy engine, and Makinen’s Mini was fuel injected for the first time – never happened. Just days before the start foot and mouth disease was declared throughout the UK, and the rally was cancelled. The works Healey (that last car was Peter Browning’s own) was history. It was pre-Second World War rally driver Donald Healey (he won the 1931 Monte Carlo in an Invicta) who created the legend. Healey’s masterstroke was to put the 2.6 -litre, fourcylinder, engine from the unloved Austin A90 Atlantic in a two-seater body built by Tickford. A deal was done with the British Motor Corporation’s Leonard Lord, and the Austin Healey 100/4 was created. Production started (Jensen making the bodies) in 1953, and by 1956 the 100/4 had gained two cylinders (in fact, the 100 Six boasted a totally different engine) and, in 1959 the first Austin-Healey 3000 appeared. The sports car rapidly established itself in SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) racing, and the Healey-run factory race team took honours at events like Sebring, and raced at Le Mans. Early rally results went to John Gott, Peter Riley and Jack Sears. Pat Moss beat the men on the Liege-Rome-Liege marathon, and Donald and Erle Morley won the Alpine Rally twice. But compared with the Mini, the old 1950s Healey was yesterday’s car. Then, in 1968, along came the Ford Escort Twin Cam. Rauno and Timo drove them as well! Needless to say the Healey became a race and rally winner all over again in later years’ classic motorsport with - amongst many – former Donald Healey Motor Company apprentice Jonathan Everard, Ted Worswick and Denis Welch. Now, although ex-works Healeys command big money, road cars are readily available and affordable, and spares and advice are plentiful.