AUSTIN-HEALEY SPRITE

The original and the best, the Mk1 Austin-healey ‘Frogeye’ Sprite is pared-down purity on wheels, but its values may be (slightly) less stratospheric than you might think says Phil White.

Donald Healey is high on my list of ‘people I wish I could have had a pint with.’ He is, to my mind, the British version of Carroll Shelby and thanks to an ebullient personality and a penchant for collaboration, he catalysed the creation of many remarkable cars and boats.

While many Healey-born vehicles were premium products, he also had a fondness for sports cars accessible to the ordinary person. This expressed itself well in 1953’s lovely Austinhealey 100. Then in 1958 it found its purest form in a design for BMC. If, like me, you get excited by essentialist cars such as the Lotus Seven, then the Austin-healey Sprite is your kind of motor. Colin Chapman must surely have approved, as the Sprite – especially in Mk1 form – has everything it needs and nothing that it doesn’t. There aren’t even handles on the outside of the doors.

Nor is there a bootlid. If you want your luggage or the spare wheel, you have to fold the seats forward and rootle around in the void of the tail section. This omission is not to save weight, but to create strength. The Sprite’s body is largely a unitary construction, with the front suspension hung from additional legs. So the rear end is responsible for the suspension and drivetrain without the benefit of a ladder chassis. This was inspired by the Jaguar D-type, but it was the first time the arrangement was employed on a mass production sports car.

Despite using leaf springs at the rear, the Sprite was incredibly svelte. It weighed in at just 664kg, so although its BMC A-series engine produced only 43bhp, it was lively enough to delight its pilots. And as the Mini’s launch the following year would spark a huge industry devoted to tuning this engine, few Sprites would produce standard power for long.

Part of the package was a sparkling chassis, which paired the Austin A35’s independent front suspension with the Morris Minor’s rack and pinion steering. The car’s centre of gravity was almost below sea level. All these elements combined with the low mass to create a go-kart-like sports car that provided almost limitless driving pleasure.

It looked the part, too. The original concept included, rather adventurously, pop-up headlamps, but BMC deleted these on cost grounds, so instead the lamps live in bulges protruding from the nose cone between the raised wings. Inevitably, the car was dubbed Frogeye from its earliest days. That nose cone hinged upwards in its entirety, which both made maintenance easy and spawned a raft of restyled aftermarket bonnets, usually made of GRP.

The cockpit of a Sprite is a masterpiece of minimalism. The seat backs are wafer thin, the dash a simple board with the instruments and switchgear spread across it. The gear lever gaiter is a vestigial ring of rubber, the doors are mostly metal with little in the way of trim. Tucked inside them are the door handles. A piece of leather is casually fixed across the opening to provide basic stowage for a pair of driving gloves, a map and a pack of fags. There is a packaway hood, but if you want protection from the elements you can also opt for a tonneau cover or the factory hard top. Even the steering wheel is pared down to two spokes and a rim fashioned in black plastic. Above the dash sits a tiny rear-view mirror and the open road, but what more could you want?

These days, less is more, at least to a degree. Sprite values are reasonably strong, but this is far from an unattainable car. Later generations of both it and its MG Midget sister are much cheaper, but considering the Mk1 Sprite’s purity of concept and execution, its history as the brainchild of a man among Britain’s most charismatic car designers, its tuneability and its sparkling character, it’s an absolute bargain. Ownership is far from challenging, as both club support and specialists are in plentiful supply. I don’t know if you can tell from the tone of this piece, but I really, really want a Sprite. And I suspect that you do too.