He went on night bombing raids and served on anti-Zeppelin patrols and also as a flying instructor. Shot down by British anti-aircraft fire on one of the first night bomber missions of the war, after a further series of crashes he was invalided out of the RFC in November and spent the rest of the war checking aircraft components for the Air Ministry.
After the Armistice he returned to Cornwall, took a correspondence course in automobile engineering and opened the first garage in Perranporth in Healey found rally driving and motor racing more interesting than his garage and its car hire business and used the garage to prepare cars for competition.
Now in demand as a competition driver he sold the garage business, moved to the Midlands to work for Riley but soon moved to the Triumph Motor Company as experimental manager.
The next year he was made technical director and responsible for the design of all Triumph cars. He created the Triumph Southern Cross and then the Triumph Dolomite 8 straight-eight sports car in following his class win, and 3rd overall, in the Monte Carlo Rally in a Triumph Gloria of his own design. Triumph went into liquidation in but Healey remained on the premises as works manager for H M Hobson making aircraft engine carburettors for the Ministry of Supply.
Later in the war he worked with Humber on armoured cars. Donald Healey was keen to begin making his own cars, planning post-war sports cars with colleague and chassis specialist Achille Sampietro. Their first cars were expensive high quality cars. H Tait. Following his Triumphs it won the and alpine rallies and the touring class of the Mille Miglia. Next was a high performance sports car, the Healey Silverstone which appeared in and was so successful it led to an agreement with an American company Nash Motors.
In , Healey established an agreement with George W. Mason, the president of Nash Motors to build Nash-engined Healey sports cars. The first series of the 2-seaters were built in and they were designed by Healey with styling and aerodynamic input from Benjamin Bowden.
The same all enveloping theme was used by Bowden on the Zethrin Rennsport one year later. However, Pininfarina restyled the bodywork for and took over the production of its new steel body. Co driving with Nash.
Donald Healey wanted to produce a comparatively inexpensive sports car with mph performance. His new factory, Cape Works, could not supply the demand so instead the Austin-Healeys were manufactured under a licensing arrangement by British Motor Corporation at their Longbridge works.
At that time Nash and Austin were working together on the project which became their Metropolitan. Donald Healey formed a design consultancy in , one of the results was the Austin-Healey Sprite which went into production in The production arrangement with BMC ended in This was a long and fruitful relationship for Healey, in part because Jensen had been making body shells for Austin-Healey since the demise of the similar Austin A40 Sports. He demolished the concrete covering of the beach of Polgwidden Cove a D-Day invasion launch-pad and used the salvaged material to surface a steep track from the house to the beach.
He sold Trebah in His son, Geoffrey, born in and a former pupil of Warwick School, wrote several books about the cars and one about their partnership.
The business was founded in by Donald Healey, a successful car designer and rally driver. Healey discussed sports car design with Achille Sampietro, a chassis specialist for high performance cars and Ben Bowden, a body engineer, when all three worked at Humber during World War II. It was based in an old aircraft components factory off Miller Road in Warwick. After the war, he set up his own company, making Riley-engined Healey cars, but he hit the jackpot with the Austin-Healey in , and subsequently the cut-price Sprite.
Later, he became chairman of Jensen. Healey's two sons, Geoffrey and Brian, also joined their father's Healey Motor Company, and the trio were closely involved in designing the Jensen-Healey sports car. Although Donald Healey passed away in at the age of 89, his family have guarded his precious brand with all the fervour of a Nike or an Armani.
No one gets to sell a Healey-branded car without their permission. Yet now, someone has that permission, and he's the unlikeliest of candidates.
If enthusiasm and knowledge alone are enough for success, then Tim Fenna undoubtedly has what it takes. He owns the company Frontline Spridget, which is a thriving Austin-Healey spares specialist. But now he's also managing director of HFI, an Anglo-American consortium that's spent an undisclosed seven-figure sum to buy into Healey Automobile Consultants. That gives Fenna and his US associates the right to use the Healey name on a new car, a prototype of which is said already to be running, while Kate Healey, Donald's granddaughter, says Fenna is "a worthy custodian" of the property.
He cannot use Austin, though - not without an agreement with China's Nanjing Automotive, which owns this venerable trademark after buying the assets of MG Rover last year. Media speculation is that Nanjing intends to use the Austin brand in China, as it has a definite Mandarin ring to it, but a licensing deal with Tim Fenna's HFI could still be possible.
Which is all dandy. Except that Tim Fenna is edging his Healey out of the quiet country road of classic vehicles and into the unrelenting motorway fast lane of selling brand-new sports cars; treacherous territory for all but the fleetest, most roadworthy of enterprises. To design, verify, manufacture and market a sports car that normal people might purchase instead of a Porsche, Lotus, TVR or Morgan is a daunting undertaking.
There is also the considerable burden of creating a new Healey car that doesn't suffer by comparison with its illustrious forebears. Why buy a "new" one as a plaything when, perhaps for similar money, you can get your hands on a feisty originals? And feisty and varied they were. The birth of Austin-Healey occurred actually during the London motor show.
The British Motor Corporation was so smitten with the Healey sports car revealed on the opening day that it signed an on-the-spot deal with Healey. From the start, the cars were very rare in the UK, with 90 per cent exported, overwhelmingly to the US. There was plenty of rallying and speed-record success, too. Its four-cylinder 2. We can see a louvred bonnet but not a M type — so maybe he had a few mods under there? Bruce McLaren.
Harrison Ford. Ford owns quite a few British classics and is often seen out cruising in his Healey. Barry Sheene. Pat Moss. Joanne Woodward. The Princess of Monaco. Formula 1 Stars in Healey Cars. Latest News.
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