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This previously unpublished photograph gives a tantalising glimpse of what a sports car developed by Donald Healey for the US market would have looked like.
The image, which was taken in 1950 and was unearthed by chance in an online auction, shows the Nash-Healey. The car was the result of a meeting between sports car guru Donald Healey and Nash Motors chief George Mason on board a UK-bound ocean liner in 1949, which led to the decision to collaborate.
Under the deal Nash supplied its six-cylinder engines for a Healey-built open two-seater car aimed at Chevrolet’s Corvette and Ford’s Thunderbird. Healey commissioned coachbuilder Tickford to produce something special and this handmade prototype – codenamed X-7 – was the result.
Yet Tickford’s stylish design was shunned by Nash, which instead chose Pininfarina to restyle the Nash-Healey. The X-7 remained a one-off rarely seen in public.
This period photographic print gives a fascinating pointer to the Austin-Healey 100, because the prototype for that was also built by Tickford a few months afterwards. The windscreen rake and front wing contours all preview the 100/4’s final form, while the grille shape, headlights and bonnet scoop all suggest the later 100-6.
Unlike many prototypes, X-7 was not destroyed. Today it’s owned by American collector Leonard McGrady, whose 80-strong cache of Nash-Healeys accounts for an incredible one-sixth of all 506 examples built.
https://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/news/classic-car-news/1505/healeys-lost-sports-car-revealed/