Austin-Healey 100 prototype: from Warwick with love

By Paul Hardiman

| 11 Apr 2023

Classic & Sports Car – Austin-Healey 100 prototype: from Warwick with love

It’s 1952, and Donald Healey has just pulled off his masterful coup.

At the London Motor Show he’s sold the concept of his gorgeous new Healey Hundred sports car to Leonard Lord of Austin, which will make it in volume.

The beautiful and lithe new roadster, its lines perfectly imagined by Gerry Coker and setting the template as the epitome of the British Sports Car, is half-hidden behind a pillar, but soon will explode into the world – mostly the United States – as a fully fledged production car.

‘NUE 854’ is one of 19 hand-built, aluminium-bodied Austin-Healey 100 prototypes

But there’s a problem. Cars are needed for publicity, for test drives.

The Healey has been designed and hand-crafted by a small cadre of genius, hands-on engineers; the highest echelon of men in sheds at the top of their game, if you will.

They were ‘DMH’ himself, son Geoffrey, experimental department head Roger Menadue, chassis designer Barry Bilbie and works manager Harry Brandish.

A small plate recognises this car’s ‘Le Mans’ upgrade

They can only produce cars in tiny numbers, and Austin isn’t ready for volume; it’s not something you can switch on overnight.

So, before assembly moves to Longbridge in March 1953, the first cars will be built by hand, while the Healeys are still refining the design as well as working with Austin engineers to transform the 100 from a prototype intended for low-volume sales into a vehicle that could roll down a regular production line.

The men at Warwick will bridge this gap, constructing the initial batch of cars that the world would see.

An Austin horn-push in this car’s Derrington steering wheel is unique to NUE 854

The plan was for the first 50 to be built this way. In the event only 19 were, and this is the original roadgoing right-hand drive one, number 16 – actually 15 – of that batch.

It will have been blessed and caressed by all the famous hands, because the Healeys were gentlemen able to make you a car from scratch, as proven by several outings on the Mille Miglia in their own machines in the late 1940s.

The 100 has those same Healey values stamped all the way through it, hallmarks of their background as competition drivers: robust chassis, torquey motor – this time from Austin rather than Riley – good brakes and balanced handling. They wouldn’t have settled for anything less.

‘It was hand-crafted by a cadre of genius, men in sheds at the top of their game’

So, because these first 19 were basically prototypes, they have several detail differences compared with the later production cars, though the headlamps were raised above the 1952 show car’s low lights almost immediately.

The major change is that all of the outer body panels are aluminium rather than just the front and rear shrouds.

The most obvious way to tell them from the production models, the first of which were also aluminium, is that the body swage is deeper, more sharply pronounced having been rolled by human hand rather than stamped on a machine.

Although NUE 854 carries an ‘Austin of England’ badge, it was built before assembly started in Longbridge

Within, several of the internal panels differ, also being made by hand. The most visible is the odd-shaped gearbox cover, hand-fabricated in aluminium rather than being made in two parts riveted together.

The floorpans are embossed ‘100’ rather than ‘100-1’ and the chassis rails are butt-welded, instead of seamed with a raised lip.

On this car, the grille is a hand-made, one-piece brazed item rather than being assembled from separate parts.

The seats are on wood packers, rather than runners, with holes for adjustment

The dashboard comprises two pieces instead of one stamping and the seats aren’t mounted on runners, being bolted to the floor via wooden packers, with alternative holes for adjustment.

Likewise, there are two sets of mounting holes in the chassis to allow for alternative positions of the steering box and idler.

This car, uniquely, has an Austin horn-push on the centre of the 17in Derrington period steering wheel.

The engine is painted duck egg blue, there’s no radiator duct, no fan guard and the cooling blades are curved as on the A90 saloon that donated its mechanicals to the 100.

Guiding the Austin-Healey 100 prototype through a series of bends is a joy

The Warwick-built Healeys received build numbers prefixed AHX for the 15 ‘roadgoing’ cars, which have BN1 chassis numbers, or AHR for the four Special Test cars, which had SPL chassis numbers and were used for recordbreaking and racing.

All of the BN1s were Healey Ice Blue and the SPLs were Docker’s Metallic Light Green. Not all of them exist.

The first three were shipped to the USA, and only one of those is known to remain.

AHX4 was produced for the Frankfurt show and no longer survives. AHR5 was built for Geneva and was later rebuilt as a 100S.

A plaque in NUE 854 confirms rally driver Betty Haig as its first keeper in 1953

AHR6 was registered NOJ 392, served as a press car then raced at Le Mans in 1954, and is now restored to original, while AHR7 (registered NOJ 393) became the 1955 Le Mans entry, also still surviving.

AHR8 is lost. AHX9 was the right-hand-drive development car and was scrapped in ’55. AHX10 was almost certainly never built, because AHX11 has 11s overstamping 10s. AHX15 is off the radar.

NUE 854, ‘our’ car, is AHX16 and is the first right-hand-drive 100 BN1 produced for sale. Nothing is known of AHX17 or AHX18. AHX19 is registered NUE 855, last changing hands in 2015, and AHX 20 is missing.

With some help from other restorers, owner Chris Dixon identified the prototype’s 50 pre-production differences and set about restoring his Warwick-built 100

The bodies were hand-made by Jensen, which was also learning its way as it went, so all of these early shells are slightly different in detail.

For example, AHX11 has an internal bonnet release whereas AHX16 has a conventional button and latch, and the treatment around the tail-lights differs subtly from the mass-produced version.

AHX16 was sold to noted rallyist Betty Haig, who registered it on 16 July 1953 and used it in competition, first at the Great Auclum hillclimb in August, running number 32, where, due to overheating, she removed the bonnet and ran 28.40, 27.83 and 27.49 secs on the twisty 440-yard course.

The aluminium-bodied 100 feels quicker than the standard car

The car sported the single spotlight it still has today. Stewart Lewis-Evans won that day, setting a new record on the Berkshire course at 21.47 secs in a supercharged Cooper 1100.

After the Brighton Speed Trials in September, a note in Haig’s diary shows that, at 2500 miles, the car was uprated to Le Mans spec with compression raised to 8:1 by Healey during October ’53, and returned on 12 January 1954, in preparation for the March Rallye Paris-St Raphaël Féminin (which she first tackled in 1935).

The route went from the capital via Reims, Lyon, Marseille, Turin, San Remo and Monte-Carlo before the finish on the Côte d’Azur.

There was little rust in the steel box-section chassis when Chris Dixon acquired the car in 2014

Running number 114, she won the over 2-litre class.

Haig sold the car in April 1954, and it passed through 12 more owners and three colour changes before Chris Dixon acquired it in 2014.

It had been advertised in 1962, sporting twin spotlights, by Gold Seal Car Co in New Cross for £375, alongside one of the Tojeiro MGs for £425. By 2014, it was a “scruffy driver”.

The Austin-Healey 100 prototype’s dashboard is made up of two pieces, rather than the one stamping used for the production cars

The car had been part-restored in ’89 and painted green, the panel gaps were all over the place and there was plenty of filler under the paint.

Dixon took a deep breath and commissioned a nut-and-bolt rebuild from Bill Rawles Classic Cars to bring it back to the condition and spec of Haig’s ownership.

With the help of other restorers of Warwick 100s, notably Steve Norton of Cape International and Blair Harber in Canada, all of the pre-production differences – more than 50 in this case – were identified and retained as the central tenet of the exacting rebuild.

The Big Healey’s Gerry Coker lines look sublime from any angle

There was little rust in the chassis, and the core of the body survived, although all four wings are new, as is the interior.

The wiring loom was replaced with a period cotton-covered version.

Because the car was fitted with the Le Mans upgrade early in its life, it was returned to this spec, with DWR1 camshaft, 1¾in H6 carburettors and cold airbox, though the motor also runs a steel crank and aluminium sump.

Hardy Engineering overhauled the gearbox and overdrive and the original radiator was re-cored, though with four rows of tubes rather than three.

The Le Mans kit and light aluminium body help this Austin-Healey 100 to feel extra sprightly

The suspension, rear axle and brakes were refurbished, and new 48-spoke wheels fitted.

It looks spot-on in Healey Ice Blue, its poised lines urging you to have a go. And driving… it’s just like a Healey 100, but with a few detail differences.

It feels all of a piece – no surprise because it’s been properly screwed together, but there is a tiny rattle in the left door – and if anything it’s more supple than a steel car.

‘It looks spot-on in Healey Ice Blue, its poised lines urging you to have a go’

It’s very torquey – a trait that 100s are born with – though this is enhanced by the extra prod from the mildly tweaked engine, and less weight.

How much we’re not sure: aluminium is much lighter than steel, but the panels will be slightly thicker. We’re guessing about 100lb, maybe a little more.

The most obvious difference, though, is that where a standard production Healey can be treated ham-fistedly and flatters any driver as a virtue of its innate toughness, this one needs gentle treatment off the line or it will bunny-hop.

The 100 prototype wants to oversteer in the usual inviting Healey fashion

The pedal has a direct mechanical linkage to the clutch, and an insensitive foot winds up the engine and driveline, which then amplifies, feeding off itself.

If you get it wrong it’s better to stop or declutch and try again, and you soon find that – with so much torque – you can gently let in the clutch before you get on the throttle, so docile is the big four-pot’s power delivery.

Otherwise it’s a joy, the three-speed with overdrive providing all the ratios you need, flicking between second and overdrive second through a series of twisty bends.

The Austin-Healey’s big ‘four’ runs SU H6s

The A90 transmission retains all four ratios, though first was blanked off for the 100, leaving just three forward gears.

Haig had the first-gear slot uncorked, as was found and re-blanked by a later owner. As it is, it’s pretty much perfectly geared, with overdrive top giving about 25mph per 1000rpm.

Pushing it harder, you feel that oversteer will be the dominant tendency – even on modern radials – though I’d love to try it on crossplies. It would probably drift beautifully, having broken away earlier.

The 100 prototype’s engine is painted in duck egg blue

The brakes are perfectly adequate, even though the big drums are only 1¾in wide, rather than the 2in type on later cars.

It’s one of those cars that you really don’t want to give back. A day in the saddle of this very accomplished yet friendly sports car begs the inevitable question of value.

In the same way that any of the first 200 aluminium-bodied XK120s attracts a premium over the steel versions that were eventually productionised, then, like the first of anything, it will cost more than a steel 100.

‘Pushing it harder, you feel that oversteer will be the dominant tendency…’

As its owner Dixon puts it: “There were 55 100Ss and they’re up to £1million now – and there were only 19 Warwick 100s – so I think this should be getting on for half a 100S.”

Looking back at previous sales sheds some light. NOJ 393, one of the 19 Warwick-built cars, which became the 100S prototype and was implicated in the 1955 Le Mans disaster, was sold in a dilapidated condition by Bonhams at its Brooklands sale on 1 December 2011.

It went for £843,000, almost £¼m over the £440-500k estimate. In the same auction AHX11 – a left-hander – made £102,700.

The recognisable Austin-Healey grille is a hand-made, one-piece item on the 100 prototype

That car was badly restored in the 1990s, and put right some years later. So, although correct in every detail, it can be held to be less original than NUE 854.

NOJ 392, meanwhile, raised £785,500 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2013. AHX19 (NUE 855), the fourth right-hooker from the prototype batch, was knocked down for £164,300 at auction in 2015, unrestored, with a replacement engine and wearing a 100/6 windscreen.

Understandably, Dixon favours the ‘half a 100S’ analogy.

Images: Tony Baker

Thanks to: Bill Rawles Classic Cars

This was first in our August 2017 magazine; all information was correct at the date of original publication

Factfile

Austin-Healey 100

Construction steel box-section chassis, with aluminium body panels
Engine all-iron, 2660cc pushrod ‘four’, two SU H6 carburettors
Max power 100bhp @ 4500rpm
Max torque 150lb ft @ 2000rpm
Transmission three-speed manual, LdN overdrive on second and third, RWD
Suspension: front independent, by double wishbones, coil springs rear live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, transverse Panhard rod; lever-arm dampers f/r
Steering Burman cam and peg
Brakes Girling drums all round
Length 12ft 7in (3835mm)
Width 5ft ½in (1537mm)
Height 4ft ¼in (1226mm, hood up)
Wheelbase 7ft 6in (2286mm)
Track: front/rear 4ft 1in (1245mm)/4ft 2¾in (1290mm)
Weight 2176lb (987kg)
0-60mph 9.3 secs
Top speed 118mph