Another Owner's Story

[HealeyRick]

Muscle Cars were built to go very fast, but in a straight line. Although sports cars were not as fast, they handled much better.
Ed Smallman has preferred sports cars since his youth. While he has owned many sports cars over the years, including Triumphs and a Porsche, he always had a special fondness for the Austin Healey.
The “Big Healeys” (1953-1967) had curving front fender lines that gave them a classic look similar to the XK120 and XK-140 Jaguars, but at a much more reasonable price.
When he finally found a ‘60 Austin Healey 3000 Mk I BN7 roadster for sale at a reasonable price in 1982, he was interested. It was owned by a University of Nevada at Reno professor who said, “It’s too cold in the winter to drive it.” She had receipts for all work done back into the early 1970’s. For options, it had painted wire wheels, a heater, and adjustable steering column and a 4-speed trans with overdrive.
Although it was in rough condition, with some rust issues and a poor repair to one of the quarter panels, it had potential.
That is a car afficionado’s way of saying that he loved the car even though it needed a lot of work.
At first, Smallman thought he could do all the restoration himself. He began to disassemble the car, but soon realized it was beyond his pay grade. So in 1998, he loaded the Healey and its parts on a trailer and hauled it to British Car Specialists in Stockton for an estimate. It sounded high to Smallman, so he took it to another restorer who agreed to do the work for less.
All seemed to be going well until Smallman dropped by the shop and found his car the only one there. An employee told him the owner had simply disappeared and that Ed’s Healey was the last car unclaimed. It was completely apart and the body had been stripped down to bare metal. So Smallman hired a towing company to haul the car to British Car Specialists, while he followed with “boxes and boxes of parts.” Once there, he “ate a little crow” when he made arrangements for them to do the work to finish his Healey.
“I asked them, ‘Okay, will you fix it for me?’ I was trying to save a dollar and ended up spending ten,” he mused.
Although he was lucky enough to have most of what came off his car, he had to track down the engine at a rebuilder’s and the chrome at a rechromer. British Car Specialists are primarily a mechanic shop and parts house, but they jobbed out the body and paint.
It was finished in 2002, with the body, paint, chrome, wiring and mechanics, including suspension and the engine, all redone, as well as a new set of chrome wired wheels.
“It drives like brand new,” Smallman said. “That’s because it pretty much is.”
While no hot rod, the nimble Austin Healey 3000 had a 2912 cc (178 CID) overhead-valve, inline 6-cylinder engine with twin SU carburetors that produced 124 HP. With front disc brakes, it was ahead of American cars of that year in handling and stopping.
“It’s fun to drive,” Smallman said. “But doesn’t have high end performance. 70 MPH is about the max that feels safe. It wasn’t built to go 100 all day.”
Smallman and wife Carol don’t take it on long trips. A few years back, they went to Napa and were returning by way of Marysville when they hit a traffic jam.
“We were stuck in traffic for hours because of road construction,” he recalled. “It was 104 and British cars don’t do well in heat.”
Without air conditioning, it was not pleasant and Carol put the halt on extended road trips. She does like the car and occasionally drives it, but Smallman says, “She’s a little timid with driving. She’s always afraid something is going to go wrong with it.”
Between them, they’ve put less than 2,000 miles on the Healey since it’s rebuild, mainly just cruising around the Grass Valley area, but have enjoyed those miles.
“Every time I take it out, I hear, ‘I used to own one of those,’ or ‘A buddy of mine owned one,’” he said with a chuckle. “Last Valentine’s Day we took it out and a guy told me he owned one, but his was the one with vacuum carbs.” Since all carbs depend on engine vacuum to draw the air-fuel mixture into the cylinders, it’s hard to know what the guy meant. Or if he even knew.
“I should drive it more,” Smallman noted. “But I live down a gravel drive, so I keep it stored out at a nice, climate-controlled, rodent-free garage and have to go get it.”
The rodent-free is important to Smallman.
“Years ago, I took it out for a drive and smelled something funny. I found a mouse had made a nest on top of the engine, so I decided to keep it in a better place.” He never said if the mouse was still in the nest when it started to smolder.
One highlight of owning the Healey was when his daughter got married in Tahoe.
“They used it for the wedding photos and my son-in-law drove it,” Smallman recalled. “That alone made it worth keeping the car.”
And he plans to keep his Big Healey a lot longer.

source: https://www.theunion.com/entertainment/20831232-113/ron-cherry-the-austin-healey-3000-roadster-best

 

[WaltCasten]

Thanks for sharing that, Rick. It's a refreshing change to get up on a Saturday morning and read something happy [text deleted by Moderator]

It's amazing how many stories there are of restorations that went this way of the first shop taking deposits, disassembling the cars then going under and/or the having the owners abscond with the receipts.

The reputable shop that did the body and paint work on my BN2 was in the process of recovering one of these (a Dodge muscle car of some sort). It took many years for the owner of the car to get it back through the courts. I'm pretty sure it was the old slap down a big deposit, the guy blows the car apart so it can't easily be removed, then asks for more money. The car owner sends another check which gets blown in a feeble attempt to keep the owner of the car that was in the shop before his happy...the quintessential Ponzi scheme. So then the car owner figures out he's being taken and demands his car back at which time the shop owner immediately slaps a mechanics lien on it...and there you go, many years of heartache and tens of thousands of dollars to have your car dis-assembled.

Thanks again Rick!

 

[steveg]

Great article! And how refreshing (and unusual) to have the technical aspects correctly reported!

 

[HealeyRick]

Glad you guys enjoyed it. Always interesting to see what pops up in my Google News feed keyed for "Austin-Healey" Today's articles included a story about a student named "Morgan Healey" on the local honor roll. LBC parents perhaps?

 

[pan]

Thanks for posting, Rick. A nice story.