Big Austin-healey 100s overtake the 3000 MKIIIS

The steadily growing trend for collectors to prize the first incarnations of a model range have now spread to the Austinhealeys. For the first time since our price guide has been compiled, four-cylinder A-H 100s are now rated as worth more than their ultimate successor, the 3000 MKIII – the fastest and most practical of the Big Healeys.

Of course there are fewer of those early cars around, which always helps in a competitive market, but they also have more of a competition history, can gain entry into a wider range of events and, for those to whom such things matter, offer a purer driving experience. They have to be perfect to make the really big money. That’s currently £65k in our guide, though RM recently got over £68,000 for a concours-winning restored BN2 model.

So having decided that we really should have seen this coming, it’s perhaps time to look for currently under-appreciated ‘firsts’ in other manufacturers’ model runs.