'58 Austin-Healey Sprite in Danville took years to restore
The British Motor Corp. was formed back in 1952 by merging Austin, Morris, MG, Wolseley and some makers of farm tractors as well as commercial vehicles. It was the largest British car company, producing 39% of the country's vehicles.
The Austin-Healey Sprite was designed by the Donald Healey Motor Co. Donald Healey was a famous English car designer and race car driver and was quite successful with his 100-4 and 100-6 roadsters, which were nice cars but a little pricey. So Austin executive Leonard Lord and Healey came up with the idea of building an inexpensive and small sports car that would appeal to European and U.S. buyers. The result was the AustinHealey Sprite.
An important factor in keeping the cost down was to reduce the need to engineer new parts and components, so they checked out British Motor's warehouses. No new engine was required, as they decided to use the four-cylinder, 948-cubic-centimeter engine used in Austin A-series vehicles.
That engine produced only 43 horsepower and was teamed with a fourspeed manual transmission. That combination allowed the Sprite an acceptable zero-to-60 acceleration in about 20 seconds and a top speed of just more than 80 mph. It had good gas mileage too at 36 mpg.
Another interesting feature was the use of semimonocoque (unibody) construction that helped with the vehicle's rigidity and reduced the curb weight to just 1,500 pounds. A disadvantage was it didn't allow for an outside opening boot (trunk).
Probably the most recognized feature of the AustinHealey Sprite is the headlights. They are molded into the bonnet (hood) of the car, with the original plan making them retractable, like the Porsche model 928, but the company's bean counters nixed that idea because of cost. They may have accidentally made a good decision for the wrong reason, though, in that the Sprite look is very distinctive.
In America, the car was being called “Bugeye” while in Britain it was called “Frogeye.” There was also a strong resemblance to Kermit the Frog, which was created in 1955, three years before the Sprite was introduced in 1958, which may have helped establish those nicknames.
Creature comfort features were not a priority with the Sprite. It had no outside door handles, but one could reach inside the car to open the door. It also had no standard heater, radio or side windows, not even floor mats. It was marketed to be a low-cost model for 669 British pounds or about $830 (U.S.) that “a chap could keep in his bike shed.”
This issue's feature is a 1958 Austin-Healey Sprite owned by Danville resident Jim Rose. This model came out in the introduction year of the Sprite, which was produced through 1971. Rose has owned this little roadster for 22 years, but it didn't look anything like it does today when he acquired it in 2001.
“The car was actually given to me by a friend of mine,” Rose said. “He had too many projects. `I started it,' the former owner said, `but I want you to finish it.' The motor was in 100 pieces. The last time it was on the road was in 1969, and it was on the racetrack.”
At that time, Rose owned a 1971 MG Midget sports car, which he sold for $8,000 with the idea of using that money to fix up his newly acquired Sprite. This was the plan Rose explained to his wife and told her it would take him about six months to complete. He turns out to have spent about $22,000 to restore the car, which took him about five years.
The car has a Volvo motor and transmission, and he drives it a couple times a week, probably driving it between 2,000 and 3,000 miles a year but never in the rain. He has done most of the mechanical restoration work himself, but he did have it professionally repainted a Lexus red (at $1,000 per gallon). Recently he added a wide white racing strip. He has replaced the seats with two mini-Cobra bucket seats, which he said are a little better than the standard seat but a long way from being considered plush.
The car did come with a normal windscreen (windshield), but Rose recently removed that in favor of two small Brockland racing screens that give the car a competitive race car look. Although the car has no way to open the boot (trunk) from the outside, there is storage space behind the seats. Rose used that space to install quality speakers, and he plugs in his iPhone when he wants music while driving.
While the owner is mechanically inclined, he is not a trained mechanic. He actually is the CEO of Computer Training Source in Pleasanton and is largely self-taught in auto mechanics, giving a lot of credit to watching YouTube videos. Is he done working on this car? No way. He enjoys tinkering with it.
“I never want to be done. I always want a project car,” Rose said.