About once every twenty years a motor car appears that is truly exciting! The new Austin Healey 100, acclaimed “The Sports Car ofthe Year,” is just such a car. Now we have it for your inspection.

Best of all – this magnificent motor car sells for only $2,985 including Federal taxes!

The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering always draws out many of the best vintage racing cars on the planet—so it only makes sense that Bonham’s auction at the event will follow suit. From Duesenbergs to McLarens, there are too many amazing sports and racing cars coming across that magnificent auction block to list them all. I do want to point out a few personal favorites. Some of these may not be the cars that command the high-end bids. They are just some that made me smile as I perused the auction catalog.

1953 Bandini 750 Sport Siluro

1970 Alfa Romeo GTA 1300

1965 Shelby Cobra 289 – I far prefer it’s curves to the 427

1964 Cheetah GT Coupe

1959 Autobianchi Bianchina Transformable

1955 Austin-Healey 100 BN1. I can’t believe that adjustable racing windscreen didn’t get more widely adopted.

1951 Allard J2

1934 Riley 12/4 Special

Ex-Howe, Ex-Nuvolari 1931 Bugatti Type 51 2-Seater Grand Prix Racer

Enter the Austin Healey Sprite

Roy Salvadori takes the Sprite into a bend …a touch on the brakes …drop down to third …into controlled drift …foot hard down in third

On the reverse of this ad was printed the chassis and drivetrain. Holding the ad to a window showed an “x-ray view” of the car. Creating an interactive print ad in 1958 is pretty impressive.

What’s more, here’s video of Roy Salvadori’s referenced road test of the Sprite at Silverstone:

I headed to the InterMarque Spring Kickoff event this morning in St. Paul, MN, which had a very good turnout of vintage sportscars despite the gloomy weather. The highlight of the show for me was this homebuilt Crosley Special, garage-built in 1951 and with hillclimb and gymkhana history in Indiana going to back to the mid 50s. It was a stunning little car, and far and away my favorite of the day.

As gorgeous as this little Crosley was, it was by no means the only show-stopper on hand. There was a very strong showing from a variety of makes: Plenty of Citroens, MGs, Healeys, Triumphs, and Jags—with a few Maseratis, pre-war luxury cars, and a few vintage bikes as well. A wonderful mix of cars, in conditions ranging from Pebble Beach Competitors (the Daimler pictured below has competed there), to well preserved, to rusty and rattle-canned. Excellent variety of cars at virtually every level of collecting. The Vintage Foreign Motors of the Upper Midwest hosts a very fun event that has grown many-fold in recent years. Excellent!

Here’s a few more shots from the event.

“The disc brakes fitted to the Sprite were masters of the situation under all conditions and their high speed behaviour was beyond criticism”

Call me crazy, but I actually find the hyperbole of this ad copy charming. Not to mention the tremendous graphic fantasticness of the Girling “G” logo.

Price as advertised (1955): £750
Adjusted for inflation (2008): £15,120 (US $24,169.32)

What that buys today: Mini Cooper S, Volkswagen GTI, well equipped Mazda Miata

Along with the map and video from earlier today, here are some photos from the 1966 or 67 road races held on the temporary street circuit along the beach in Tijuana. There’s some street action with the Formula Vees entering turn one at the end of the long beachside straight, the drivers in the production class lining up for their LeMans start, and some track shots of some MGAs and Sprites. Excellent stuff here.



Now that looks like a happy bunch of drivers.

Mark Evans hands over the restoration duties to the non-experts in the British show, Wreck Rescue. When 20 year old Lizzy takes on this absolute basket case Sprite for her first-ever restoration project, there wasn’t much to be optimistic about. She did a hell of a job though.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Thankfully, more and more old home racing movies are being pushed onto YouTube. This time, it’s a double whammy of some early Road America laps and a hillclimb in Rockford, IL. We also get a little time under the hood with a favorite of mine, the Austin-Healey 100.

Don’t feel too bad for me not being able to attend Goodwood this year. I’ll still be eating up some vintage action at Road America for the VSCDA’s Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival. It’s a double treat for me this year since the Austin Healey Sprite is the featured marque. In honor of the Sprite’s 50th anniversary, the race weekend will feature an all Sprite grid. The little Sprites on the monster 4 mile Road America track is sure to be a blast — and hopefully offer some excellent photo opportunities. I’ll be back with a full report and some photos next week. Enjoy the weekend.

Here’s something to tide you over until then; Roy Salvadori debuting and test driving the Sprite around Silverstone in 1958. Narration by John Bolster.