The three-litre Healey with a difference

• 

When you think of a three-litre Healey, 99.9% of classic car enthusiasts will think of the well known Austin Healey with its big Austin-sourced six-in-line. We like to think, however, we are part of the 0.1% of classic car mankind who have that car as a second thought. There’s more to Healey than just Austin, you know. This year’s Mille Miglia showed just a bit of that. So how about a three-litre Alvis Healey? With the Alvis sourced engine, good for 2,993cc and 106bhp, it’s surely not as quick as its later siblings, but with just 25 of them built between 1951 and ‘53 they are certainly a lot rarer.

The car shown here, offered by Moss Green of Australia, wears its chassis number 16 since it was delivered new in June 1953 by Brewsters of Long Island, New York. It comes with its original key on a ring from Brewsters. The original bill of sale, denoting the price paid and recording the part exchange of a 1951 Singer Roadster, is still there too. Buyer was Leverett Saltonstall Miller, a professional polo player who’d married Hollywood actress Ava Norring. Moss Green adds to the mystique: “It is recorded that on 26th July 1957 Norring’s best friend, another film and TV actress, Barbara Nichols was injured in a car accident in Long Island, New York whilst being driven by Miller, which resulted in an enormous court case and heavy financial settlement. Was it possible that the car in which this occurred was this very Alvis-Healey?” That could well indeed be the case – more information here.

But true or not, the car ended up Down Under in 1988, where the major restoration the car needed so much, was never undertaken. And so it retains its highly original but somewhat sad state you see it here. Now, if you decide to restore a big Healey with a difference, go for it.

(Words editor, picture courtesy Moss Green Auctioneers)

Plaats een reactie...