September - Austin Healey Owners Club of Victoria

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Healey Line up (Sourced from the Foundation Healey Museum in Bitburg) "Ace steerer Lockett was a keen lensman too - here is his snap of the Healey team for Le Mans 1953 - before the number plates were removed and race numbers added. His Austin Healey 100 shared with Gatsonides is NOJ392 and the sister car NOJ393 (the real car before the accident) for journalist Gordon Wilkins and Marcel Becquart flanks the special bodied Nash Healey; all three cars would finish. NOJ in pits (Sourced from CARS magazine Oct 1953 p 17) "Not long now. As the clock ticks closer to the 4 pm start at Le Mans in June 1953, the Healey team fits up the tonneau cover of car number 34 (NOJ392) ready for the start. The Nash Healey is on the left and NOJ393 (rebuilt with 391's bits) car 33 is on the right." The speed down the straight was around 200 kph every lap, day and night. Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt won in the Jaguar C Type with Stirling Moss second, making full use of their new disc brakes. But Johnny Lockett and Maurice Gatsonides drove NOJ 392 (number 34) 3,445 kilometres in the twenty-four hours to finish in twelfth place overall and second in class to the Trintignant / Schell Gordini and 77 kms more than 391(3). The Lucky Racer had starred in a satisfying demonstration of reliability and sporting performance, adding greatly to the credibility of the new model, so much so that by July 1953 upwards of 2000 Austin Healeys had been sold by Austin and production was approaching 100 cars a week. 10 The Vibe - Le Mans 1953 (Sourced from the Foundation Healey Museum in Bitburg) "Lockett's view from his start spot as the crowd gathers for the start of Les Vingt Quatre Heures du Mans, mille neuf cent cinquante trois. Suits, ties, raincoats, baggy pants - the fashions might change but the atmosphere doesn't. The tension in this rare driver eye view of the build up to this ultimate test of endurance 58 years ago is palpable" "NOJ 392 at Le Mans 1953. (Sourced from The Story of the Big Healeys ISBN 0 905064 29 1 p 53) Works driver Maurice Gatsonides (Gatso went on to develop the hated speed cameras everywhere in Europe) nails the line through the Esses in front of Gordini and Porsche in direct top at 165 kph. Note the wide looking rear guards - the scrutineers made Healey put spacers in to cover the tyres - and the angled up front bonnet - do it with the hinges - lets the hot air out without being a non standard and illegal scoop. Both these tricks have been copied in modern times in Targa Tasmania" Back from Le Mans, the racer NOJ 392 was given a change of oil and new brake pads and instantly became the Austin Healey 100 road test car for Motor and Autocar. It would never compete again as a works car. Since it was around 150 kilos lighter than a standard car and still had the big SU carburettors, cold air box and all the other special modifications (you can see the centre shifting taxi box in the mags) the journalists and their readers were pretty impressed, even though they would not be able to reproduce the test performance in their own cars. HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS SEPTEMBER 2011
NOJ at Arnage (Sourced from Ivo Visser Archives & Racing Sports Cars) "Ex Motorcycle racer Johnny Lockett hammers Car 34 through the slippery right hander Tertre Rouge at le Mans in 1953 on his way to P12. Lockett had the fastest lap of the new Austin Healey 100's of 152.8 kph - that's an average speed remember, without modern sticky tyres and with drum brakes" Of the Special Test Cars only NOJ 392 remained in its original form, again so lucky. 391 was loaned to a French driver in 1954 to compete in Le Tour de France Automobile where it was involved in a fatal accident. Eventually, the wreckage of both 391 and 393 were turned into 100S and sold. After impressing the journalists, in 1954 the Lucky Racer was lent to Girling Ltd for tests of the new disc brakes, as a comparison with the Dunlop system and these brakes were eventually adopted for the 100S. There was a soft spot at DHMC for this car. Geoff Healey and Margot used it for holiday trips including their honeymoon in Italy (witness the GB plate on the boot lid) and Roger Menadue adopted it as his personal hack, towing his boat to fishing spots. Eventually Donald Healey gave it to him as a company car in reward for all his hard work when the car was transferred from Austin ownership in August 1958 to Donald Healey Motor Company. Roger ran the car as his daily transport until Feb 1962 when it was sold to a Warwick car dealer. This was the start of a sad downturn in fortunes for NOJ, a fate which befalls many obsolete, 9 year old racers. Austin Healey had moved on, their focus now on the works 3000 - Pat Moss had just come 2nd outright in the RAC and the Morley Bros were getting ready for the Tulip. The Monte in January had not been great. NOJ392 went into a death spiral - six owners in five years and it lost its identity. So convincing was the standard car disguise, no one knew anymore that this car was special. In 1967, one frosty night in Sussex, the owner was driving home when the corroded floor panel gave way underneath the seat and he lost control. By now painted the colour DMH feared, dark BRG, the famous Le Mans and road test star, the Lucky Racer, ploughed headlong into a lamp post. It’s corpse was dumped down the side of the owner’s house and stayed there for three long corrosive years. A crashed old sports car, a pile of worthless junk. Meanwhile, just as NOJ392 was being sold off to the trade, my club racing career was gathering pace. The P-Type MG had given way to a Healey Silverstone and I was slowly gaining confidence and pace in Austin Healey Club circuit racing events and sprints and on the hillclimb circuit. By 1966, GOW 686 and I were frequent competitors at AH Club events - and winners of the Healey Register Trophy three years running. These events were always won by John Gott or John Chatham or Stuart Hands in their Modsports Healeys but the old Silverstone was fairly competitive with the 100’s and MG’s and TR2’s and 3’s. Through running at Prescott and invitation events, I became involved with well known lady racer Betty Haig and photographer and collector Guy Griffiths in forming the ‘Griffiths Formula' which developed into the Historic Sports Car Club. The cause was to provide events for unmodified sports cars from the 50’s and 60’s so they had somewhere exciting to run and be competitive without going the way of 10” slicks. With three other Healey Silverstones, we took part in the inaugural HSCC race in May 1966 of what has become the biggest club of historic racing in Europe and battled (sometimes successfully) with the Frazer Nashes and Ferrari 166’s and other exotica. These events went from strength to strength through the later 60’s and always provided great racing; Silverstone and especially the wonderful Castle Combe were favourite circuits. During this period, I got to know Peter Browning, who took over from Stuart Turner as competition manager for British Leyland, as well as Les Needham, who ran the Austin Healey Club. I assisted in writing the Healey racing chapter of their book ‘Healeys and Austin Healeys’ and they knew that I was keen to get something faster which was still a Healey. One day in early 1969 I got a phone call at home from Peter Browning asking if I’d seen the ad in ‘Exchange and Mart’ for an accident damaged AH 100 with alloy body, on sale for only £100. No Peter but I’ll pop down to the shops and grab one. We discussed what it might be - Peter knew that the first cars had been made of alloy so we thought it might be one of those. But all the 100S cars had alloy bodies - could it be one of those? He asked Les Needham at the AH Club to look out the old workshop records to find reggo details of the early cars and posted them to me. Meanwhile I called the number in the ad and spoke to the owner, making out I was looking for a cheap sports car. He told me how it got damaged and that he had to move house, if it didn’t go by the end of February it would go to the breaker. Did it really have an alloy body? From his answer it sounded like it might just be the shrouds, so only an ordinary car. There was no mention of any history or that it was any kind of special car. Anyway it was worth having a look at, since I was keen to get myself a faster historic Healey to get nearer the front of the HSCC events. Having committed the magic reggo numbers to memory, we slithered through the snow to find the address. Down the side of this semi in Sussex was a Healey shaped pile of snow. Knocking on the door produced a scruffy person who was very hung over and didn’t fancy getting cold and wet outside, so I told him to stay in the warm while I helped myself. Walking up to the pile of snow I casually brushed off the boot and there was a battered old black UK reggo plate - NOJ 392. Shit! I knew immediately what it was but equally clear I had to hide any excitement from the grubby owner, who was by now watching me through a window - the toilet window, since he had just thrown up. HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS SEPTEMBER 2011 11
Page 3 and 4: This Club is affiliated to the Conf
Page 5 and 6: DATES FOR YOUR DIARY SUPPER ROSTERS
Page 7 and 8: We missed out on last years “Murd
Page 9 and 10: AUSTIN HEALEY OWNERS CLUB OF VICTOR
Page 11: LUCKY RACER IN THE LUCKY COUNTRY Ho
Page 15 and 16: The Book "This is a page of the not
Page 17 and 18: HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS SEPTEMBER 20
Page 21 and 22: Our judgment proved to be correct a
Page 28: A.C.N. 006 848 362 646 Whitehorse R

September - Austin Healey Owners Club of Victoria

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?