Healeys at Goodwood

[dougie]

The big Healey four-cylinder representing well at the Goodwood races today.

 

[HealeyRick]

OAC1 is the sister car to DMH's 100 coupe and has a very interesting history: https://www.carsceneinternational.com/warwick-healey-motor-company-archive-bulletin-vii/

 

[dougie]

OAC1 is the sister car to DMH's 100 coupe and has a very interesting history: https://www.carsceneinternational.com/warwick-healey-motor-company-archive-bulletin-vii/

I've looked at both cars up close, DMH's coupe was the top of luxury for it's time. It still looked good last year when I stopped by the Healey Museum.

 

[Bob_Spidell]

Ha! I (unknowingly) picked the same Lempert wheel for my 100M:

 

[Editor_Reid]

I had a ride in OAC 1 in the latter 1980s when it was still owned by David Matthews and before it was reunited with its hardtop panels. Yes, it was a roadster for a time. If I recall correctly, the location of the hardtop panels was known, in Australia, but the owner wasn't reasonable about price and so restoring the car to its coupe origins was on hold.

 

[Neil bacon]

Hi all i knew David and Robina well they had OAC1 then and we ran some évents together with a team of people in thé late 70’s/80’s
Thé car had a 3000 drive train in it and was in Roadster form
Then David had found thé top but could not get it back from Australia
We had just been running Brands Hatch International Austin Healey week-end.
We had a lot of famous cars and people at the event but then they were not so famous unlike now.
I was chairman of thé Brands Hatch évent at thé time

 

[Editor_Reid]

Hi all i knew David and Robina well they had OAC1 then and we ran some évents together with a team of people in thé late 70’s/80’s
Thé car had a 3000 drive train in it and was in Roadster form
Then David had found thé top but could not get it back from Australia
We had just been running Brands Hatch International Austin Healey week-end.
We had a lot of famous cars and people at the event but then they were not so famous unlike now.
I was chairman of thé Brands Hatch évent at thé time

Thanks Neil. Our paths probably crossed sometime in those days. I stayed with David and Robina on trips through the UK in that era (long story, but I was in the US Army and traveling from MacDill Air Force Base (Tampa, Florida) to east Africa on "company business" so to speak). I also attended the International Healey Weekend at Stowe School in 1989. Met Roger Menadue there and he showed me his photo album, and my wife and I had dinner with Geoff and Margot - I was amazed that the Brits didn't seem interested in them and we had them "to ourselves" for a long time. Fun times. Still have many photos, dash plaque, etc.

Stowe happened halfway through a two-year assignment in east Africa and was basically the first break I got after 11 months of working seven days a week there. Long story.

Last time I saw David Matthews was at the Healey Museum opening in The Netherlands in 2012. Almost unbelievably, I was the only American there. Of course David and Robina had long since parted company.

 

[pan]

Here I am sitting in the coupe when I visited the Healey Museum in 2017.

 

[Editor_Reid]

Here I am sitting in the coupe when I visited the Healey Museum in 2017.

I hope you didn't change the radio station selection. DMH hates it when you do that. Don't ask me how I know.

 

[Rob Glasgow]

Also the seat adjustment. I don't think they added the programmable seat selection feature at the time DMH had it. Pan you are a luck man to get to sit in it. I could only look and admire.

 

[pan]

Hans and Ria were very generous during my visit. I arrived before opening time and I think they were worried that I was going to camp there overnight!
Here is another of my photos. Just the thing for a Queensland summer!
Reid, the radio station was Dutch so changing the channel wouldn't have achieved much!

 

[Neil bacon]

Hi
I think we have crosses paths again with Nick Maltby i think he has possibily sent you an article on thé peel i found . Neil

 

[Editor_Reid]

Here is another of my photos. Just the thing for a Queensland summer!
View attachment 62596

Now THAT'S a proper hardtop! Crikey!

 

[Rob Glasgow]

Pan, I didn't get to sit in any of the cars, but Hans and Ria invited me to have lunch with them at the museum. They are a wonderful couple. If you haven't been to the museum, it's located in a small town outside Zandam and is on the grounds of a polo club. Beautiful setting. While I was there, a group of Healey owners from Sweden was there with their cars. I thought it was strange that the best Healey museum would be in Holland, but after meeting Hans and Ria, you can understand the passion they have for the cars of DMH.

 

[dougie]

Pan, I didn't get to sit in any of the cars, but Hans and Ria invited me to have lunch with them at the museum. They are a wonderful couple. If you haven't been to the museum, it's located in a small town outside Zandam and is on the grounds of a polo club. Beautiful setting. While I was there, a group of Healey owners from Sweden was there with their cars. I thought it was strange that the best Healey museum would be in Holland, but after meeting Hans and Ria, you can understand the passion they have for the cars of DMH.

Without question, Hans and Ria are wonderful hosts and ambassadors of the Healey marque. Hans and I talked racing for hours, Ria was quicker with the coffee and tea than most restaurants in Amsterdam. They now have all the trophies John Chatham acquired during his competition years. The cars displayed do change, so if you made a visit before, it could look different now.

 

[Rob Glasgow]

That 100 on jack stands in the workshop was there when I visited 2 years ago. Maybe some of the fans of this site need to go over and give them a hand. Although it was cool seeing a work area like we all know.

 

[vette]

I really like the red coupe in the museum, love the lines. The hardtop and the windshield surround on the car in the video does not seem the same and to me is not as attractive.

 

[pan]

G'day Vette,
The coupe in the Goodwood video is OAC 1 which was converted to a roadster in the '70s. The coupe panels came to Australia to be used to build a replica of ONX 113. That never happened and the panels were eventually returned to England and re-fitted to OAC 1. To me, the windscreen now fitted looks like a Sprite screen. Perhaps when the coupe panels were re-fitted a Sprite screen was used because the original item had been lost? Years ago, I saw a photo of OAC 1 before the body was removed but I can't remember exactly how the screen looked.
Cheers, Alwyn

 

[vette]

It does look something like a Sprite screen but I would think the Sprite screen would be too narrow. Well, they are both good looking cars, still my favorite is DMH's. I enjoy the history of these special cars. It would be fun to learn more about the origins of these coupes, who built them and what might have been used or fabbed up from scratch.

 

[John Turney]

From Bill Emerson's The Healey Book:

In 1954, the Donald Healey Motor Company commissioned two coupe bodies to be used as special test vehicles for the development of enhancements to the Austin-Healey line-up of automobiles. The body lines for the coupe were laid down by Gerry Coker based on Donald Healey's request, "Gerry, let's see what this (the Austin-Healey 100) will look like as a coupe." These two cars (OAC 1 and ONX 113) were built on BN1 chassis' at Dick Gallimore's shop in the Austin styling section.