Healey Square Four

Just a few feet from the Burney was a motorcycle I've always wanted to see in the metal. Paul Jameson's Healey 1000/4 is one of those amazing restoration jobs that leave you open-mouthed in admiration.

Fewer than 30 Healey 1000/4s were built and as few as a dozen are known to survive. They were created in the 1970s by brothers George and Tim Healey who were Ariel Square Four enthusiasts and who specialised in tuning Edward Tuner's mighty Ariel Square Four engine for speed. They built an oil-bearing, Egli-type frame for the four and sold their handbuilt creations for less than the price of a Honda Goldwing.

This is Paul Jameson's second Healey, his first being sold to help his grandchildren through university. That original Healey covered more than 40,000 miles in Paul's ownership, including continental trips as far as Romania. This second Healey was found in the USA. It had covered some 200 miles before being sent across the Atlantic as a promotional bike to encourage sales, and was trucked from show to show, never turning a wheel in anger in the USA. At a show in California the pick-up truck it sat in caught fire and the Healey was destroyed, alloy casings melting, and white metal bearings evaporating to nothing. The wreck sat untouched in a Florida garage until September 2019 when Paul got his hands on it. “It arrived on a Saturday in March

2020 and on the following Tuesday we were locked down.”

Paul set to work and by September

2020 the Healey was reborn. It's now covered four times the miles it had when it was damaged. Paul says: “The engine is absolutely gorgeous, and it will out handle a Featherbed Norton.”