FACTS, FIGURES AND MORE CARS IDENTIFIED

I very much enjoyed reading the excellent feature on Paul Ziller's rebuilt Austin-Healey, 645 UYT, as indeed I enjoyed the whole magazine which, like the A-H, is a real 'beaut' in the classic car field. There were a couple of inaccuracies though, and just for the record I'd like to put them right. The 2660cc Austin-Healey 100-4 engine wasn't an enlargement of the standard A90 Atlantic unit, but was the same size and initial power output (88bhp). Similarly, the 2639cc six-cylinder C-series engine of the A-H 100-6 wasn't increased in capacity from the standard A90 Westminster Six lump, but kept that capacity until launch of the 2912cc Healey 3000 in 1959.

I well remember the Healey 100-4 at Longbridge between 1953 and 1956 – not a bad buy initially for just over a thousand quid! I drove my first (Ice Blue) one at 100mph in 1954; quite a thrill.

By the way, I loved your Trabbie Trivia in the Spring issue. Good to see some honest assessment of a very unusual motor; many readers must have been fascinated. And finally, regarding identification of cars in Press Pictures of the Spring issue in the Bedford image on p104, apart from the Armstrong-Siddeley Hurricane exiting the service station and (late) Phase 1 Vanguard entering it, I think the cars in line behind the OB Bedford bus were a 1939 (New) Ford 8, a 1951 Austin Devon (not Dorset), a postwar Standard 12, a Triumph Mayflower and an E493 Ford Prefect. Hopefully other readers agree on that!