The Healey Elliott Saloon and Was Designed to Be a Tourer
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VOLUME 15, NUMBER 5 Sept -Oct 2010 INSIDE THIS ISSUE Autojumble / At The Wheel 14 at this event, more info to follow. UPCOMING EVENTS What Was I Thinking? Part X 6 Tues. Nov. 12th—VCB Meeting— Cars of Branch Members 7 Tues. Oct. 5th - VCB Meeting— Location TBA Rainbow Station, Bby. (Nigel Monterey Historic Races 10 Sunday, Nov. 7th—London Brigh- Mathews Speaker) 7 PM ton Commemorative Run starting Monterey Auction News 11 Sat. Oct. 23rd—British Heritage at Delta Town and Country Inn VCB Meeting Minutes 12 Festival at Cloverdale Rodeo Show Tues. Dec. 7th—VCB Christmas Barn (VCB members free admis- Scuttlebutt 13 Party—Delta Hotel, Richmond (see sion if you bring your old English page 14 for more details) X-Mas Party 14 Car) VCB might have an info table Chassis 1501 was the first chassis and the test “car” The Healey Elliott Saloon and was designed to be a tourer. However, its life was short; it was never registered or even had a properly Part 1 - The Exploits of 1502, the Second finished body made. Surviving photos show a body de- Chassis signed to give the line of a roadster, but without details like door handles. The car, if it could be called that, was By Walter Reynolds (in part from an article writ- simply a test bed and photos show it as a bare chassis ten by Clive Randall for Marqueart.com) with a horn, headlight and seat for driving on a test track. Chassis 1501 was always known as, “The Hor- ror”. This little project arose from my research into the an- swer to “Identify This Car” in the June 2009 issue of the Fraser Valley British Motor Club‟s “The Highway Hooter” newsletter. The car shown was the Healey Elli- ott saloon, license GWD 42, and I was the first person to respond with the correct answer. I found so much information about the car that I decided to write an ar- ticle on it. The story requires two parts: The first part, this article, covers the making of the Healey Elliott pro- totype and its recent restoration, and the second part details the history of Healey Elliott GWD 42, chassis B1649, and its rallying career. Chassis 1501, “The Horror” in Healey‟s shop, 1948. (Healey archives photo.) No published road tests were made using this car and the chassis was broken up by the factory in 1948. Chassis 1502 was a different matter: Still a prototype Healey Badge but showing most of the details of 1501‟s chassis, only a relatively mature one. This car was bodied, was good In 1946, Donald Healey started his car company in the enough to sell and to be registered on the road – but not yard of a firm making concrete mixers. He didn‟t have before it made history. enough money to buy the chassis and components he needed to start production. Even so, he announced that The manufacturer of the body was Sam Elliott & Sons the company would have two forms of a high perform- of Reading (pronounced „Reding‟), England. ance sports car. The early brochures only had artist‟s drawings of the car. Donald Healey had a problem: Even though the com- pany had orders coming in, he needed to prove his The first chassis they assembled for testing had all claim that the Healey was a very high performance car. sorts of problems and needed regular sessions with a More than that, he wanted his car to be the fastest pro- welder to keep it together. For the inquisitive, they also duction car in the World. This would firm up the orders, had a wooden model of the saloon. but would also provide the incentive for suppliers to be flexible with their invoice terms in order to be associ- ated with such a car. Indeed, great lengths had been On Saturday, November 2nd, 1946 the Healey and the taken to make the Healey a serious contender for the two Riley 2½ litre saloons (FDU 741 and HXC 440) set “fastest production car in the World” accolade. off on the Milan-Como Autostrada. This was one of Mussolini‟s first motor roads. The lack of maintenance Chassis 1502 was a streamlined saloon, tested in a and age, plus the fact the road was still open to normal wind tunnel. The only window glass was the wind- traffic made Healey feel that even higher speeds could shield; all other windows were Plexiglas to save weight. have been obtainable. The Milan Autoclub agreed to The seat frames were aluminum (purported to be from scrutinize the tests. an airplane), leather covered bucket seats in front, bench seat in rear. The body was an aluminum alloy over an ash and plywood frame. The suspension was coil springs all round (much lighter than leaf springs). As petrol was scarce, the petrol cap was located inside the boot. The boot could only be opened using a pull switch on the front of the rear seat armrest. Healey‟s target was to produce a car that had 100bhp and weighed a ton. What he managed was 104bhp and just over a ton. The car used a tweaked Riley 2½ litre engine with twin S.U. carbs and Riley gearbox and rear axle. Compared to the Riley 2½ litre saloons using the same running gear and weighing 3,192 lb, the Healey saloon weighed 2,520 lb and was a real lightweight. The 104bhp was 14 greater than the Riley car. „The Motor‟ magazine photo, 1946. All cars performed well. The Healey achieved 104.14 mph mean speed in tests and an average standing start kilometer of 17.8 seconds giving 1502, and the Healey marque the title of “Fastest Production Car in the World”. History had been made and a reputation for a marque was being established. According to the story written up in articles and books, the famous number plate VVV 214 given to the car (and on at least one photograph of the prototype Westland) was simply made up from a pile of numbers lying around in the factory. When in Italy, she sported black Healey Elliott, Unknown Chassis Number on auc- and red trade plates 199 NX, but when she was offi- tion in 2010. cially registered her number was GAC 506. (Wouter & Pieter Melissen photo.) The next step was to stage an event to test the car. In Britain it was believed that there were no long high speed roads capable of properly testing the car. Healey also wanted to cover some mountain roads in the test. The Editor of „The Motor‟, Christopher Jennings, who had initially discussed the trial with Healey, owned one of the new Riley 2½ litre saloons and mentioned the idea to Victor Leverett, the Sales Manager for Riley. The upshot was on October 29th, 1946 two Riley 2½ litre saloons and the Elliott left Folkestone en-route to Italy for the speed trial to test to see whether the Elliott could do what the calculations said were possible. In other words, achieve an average speed on test of 100mph. „The Motor‟ magazine photo, 1946. VOLUME 15, NUMBER 5 THE ROUNDABOUT PAGE 2 Because the company desperately needed funds, 1502 and the cloth/leather interior with the idea of building a was sold, but not until August 1947. Until that time she fiberglass body. As with many such projects, nothing was too useful for testing and public relations. As she happened and now he needed space. Mr. Walters had was still a prototype she was sold with some consider- owned 1502 since 1959 and it is suspected that the car able differences to her successors, thinner chassis steel, had fallen into disrepair and neglect long before then. numerous riveted rather than welded brackets, and a number of other detail differences. One of her siblings (GWD 42, the subject of Part 2) in 1947 ran at 111 mph in Belgium confirming what were then some sensational performance figures, but 1502‟s history book appeared to have been closed. However, thanks to the work of a chap called Jack Ogden in the 1960‟s and Bryan Spiers (Healey Elliott club historian at that time) more is now known. Other variations of this Healey were made over the du- ration of production, but with different names. Other names include Healey Westland (roadster), and Healey Tickford. As in the Healey Elliott, the name which fol- lowed Healey represents the name of the body builder. 1502 when it was “found”. (Classic Restorations photo.) Ogden was in urgent need for an engine for the Tickford, and so the rolling chassis, interior woodwork, etc. were stored and the engine transplanted. Just about this time, Bryan Spiers tracked down the car and told Ogden what she was. However, in the 1960s it was unthinkable to restore 1502 in that condition. Indeed, the poor quality steel chassis problems of 1501, “The Horror”, were probably also in 1502. With 1501‟s early aluminum body panel problems, it is likely that 1502 started to deteriorate quite quickly in her life. Years passed and the chassis of 1502 was stored in Healey Westland roadster. damp conditions and deteriorated still further; the parts were in dry storage, and the Tickford was happily (Date, location and photographer unknown.) using the engine. Ogden noted at that time that the In October 1950, the Elliott and Westland models were engine was surprisingly standard for a speed trial car. replaced by the Tickford and Abbot. The Tickford was Even the inlet valves were small. The only change the saloon, while the Abbot was the drophead/roadster.