Questions for Gerry Coker

[Editor_Reid]

I'll soon be spending a few days with Gerry Coker and I thought I'd ask for your questions for him. In other words, if you could pose a question to Gerry Coker, what would it be?

Is there some aspect of Healey history that you feel is vague and where he might be able to fill in some blanks? I plan to ask him about the "streamlined" Healeys that raced in the 1957 Sebring 12 hours and if he knows what became of them.

Other questions?

 

[Lin]

Do technical or conceptual drawings exist for ONX 113?
Lin

 

[British_Recovery]

I'd like to know what some of his favorite cars are, past and present. ( Besides the Austin-Healey )
Bob

 

[Griz]

Maybe this is well known within the Healey community, but not to me. I believe that Gerry penned the design for the Healeys...what was his "inspiration" for his designs?
Griz

 

[stretchit2]

What interest, other than automobiles, does Gerry have?

 

[Michael Oritt]

Reid--

This matter is covered in your recent "Healey Marque" article on the 1957 Sebring cars.

Aside from Phil Stiles another person that might have been able to provide an answer to the question was Ed Bussey of Ship and Shore Motors in West Palm, Florida, a BMC importer/dealer. Partly at your behest I interviewed him in January, 2004 and perhaps you may remember an article I wrote for the February Capital Area AHC newsletter which may be found at:

https://www.capitalhealeys.org/Assets/Miscellaneous/HHR pdfs/hhr_feb_04.pdf

It is a shame I was not armed with questions about the issue when I sat with Bussey. At the time it appeared to me that Bussey's health and memory were declining and though he was vague on some matters it was clear that he had a wealth of information available in his memory. He also had much paper documentation coming out of his business and I got the distinct feeling that it was destined for a shredder after he passed.

Since the wheelbase of a 100-6 is longer than that of either a BN1 or a 100S perhaps by measuring or in some way scaling the wheelbases of the cars pictured we could get an answer to the question. I know we have only old photos to go on and the cars are shot at angles but maybe points of reference could be established in enlargements, etc.

At a time when the most minute details of so much is instantly available to us it is nevertheless true that so many facts and so much knowledge has simply fallen into the ashcan of history.

 

[HealeyRick]

There have been several styling exercises of "new" Healeys like this one:

If Gerry were given a clean sheet to design a Healey for today, would he retain any of the styling cues of the original or would he take it in an entirely different direction? What would the features of a new design look like?

 

[pan]

I'd be interested to know if he preferred the freedom he had while designing the "Healey Hundred" compared to the corporate structure he must have experienced at the Ford Motor Co.

 

[HealeyRick]

Reid--


Aside from Phil Stiles another person that might have been able to provide an answer to the question was Ed Bussey of Ship and Shore Motors in West Palm, Florida, a BMC importer/dealer. Partly at your behest I interviewed him in January, 2004 and perhaps you may remember an article I wrote for the February Capital Area AHC newsletter which may be found at:

https://www.capitalhealeys.org/Assets/Miscellaneous/HHR pdfs/hhr_feb_04.pdf

Michael,

I enjoyed reading that article when it was first published and it's still a good read today.

 

[catfood]

My car was one of 10 cars registered at the same time to "Healey Motor Co", registered SAC 407 to SAC 416, the last four of which were marked "export" in brackets in the same date in May 1955. Can he give any insight in to why these ten cars were registered with DHM Co and what they were used for?

 

[nevets]

I may be late to this party but I would be very curious to know more about his design process. Was the preproduction prototype (Earls Court Healey) the first full-scale representation of the Healey? Were there any iterations, perhaps clay models? design failures?? Did it really go directly from the drawing board to the prototype shop? Were design tweaks made during the prototype build? As a product designer, rarely does anything come out right the first time, yet the design of the Healey is so right!!!

Thanks!