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Nearly had wings

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57_BN4

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I've been leafing through Geoffrey Healey's 1978 book Austin Healey and it is interesting to see how the original drawing morphed into the production design. Gotta say I'm glad the fins and those rear arches didn't make it through...

Andy.

coker drawing.jpg

rear fin.jpg
 
It would have dated terribly! Luckily they didn't keep the fins, and we ended up with such a classic...
 
57_BN4 said:
I've been leafing through Geoffrey Healey's 1978 book Austin Healey and it is interesting to see how the original drawing morphed into the production design. Gotta say I'm glad the fins and those rear arches didn't make it through...

Andy.

View attachment 28839

View attachment 28840
Click to expand...
I bought my Healey on April 1st, 1978 from Austin-Healey West in San Francisco. The car caught my eye during the build up to the 1977 holidays, when propriator Ray Caivano turned the parts counter into an impromtu bar__the silver 2-seater with its unique (Pat O'Kearsey applied, much to Ray's chagrin) racing stripe, Moto-Lita steering wheel and 3" aircraft surplus lap-belts was right next to the stool I was perched upon. The more I drank, and the more I looked at that car, the more I was enamored with it! I was pretty heavy into MGBs at the time, and figured the Healey to be too expensive (@ $4200.00, in its largely restored state) and the parts supply was probably 1/10th of what it is today__if I remember correctly, the Moss Motors catalog was only 15 or 20 pages!

Over the next couple of months, every time I stopped at Healey West (I was doing side-job electrical work for that new location) I would look at more and more of the details on that car, and everything came sharply into focus when Ray said "... I'll finance it!"

A stack of Geoff's books arrived not long after I took delivery of BN6L-942, and Ray gave me a copy, saying " it's part of the deal" and between that book and the monthly issues of Healey Highlights, I was on the track of learning everything I could about my new car. By year's end, I was an employee of Austin-Healey West.


But yes, good book, and glad that DMH canned the fins!
 
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