Race Cars and Motorsports

Slick panel work adorns this Healey of unknown vintage found in Illinois.



Racer? Wonder what instrumentation it has. Or Bonneville car... but as someone comments, why take all that trouble and then spoil the airflow with a clunky roll bar.



Factory car or home brew? My bet is it was built with that V8.



SBC which may be 67 Camaro.



Read all about it here [barnfinds.com])

Ivor



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2020 06:11AM by 88v8.

Greetings Ivor, Thanks for sharing this. I never realized my post at ahexp.com was receiving attention. I actually purchased the car in Southern Michigan, where it has been since it was auctioned in mid-90s to previous owner. Before that, it seems to have been in Wisconsin . As far as I know it has no history in Illiois. There is a body sticker from the 44th Bonneville Nationals from '92 and also a reproduced 1960 sticker.

Aha!
Thanks for dropping in.
So, what's it like to drive? Do you use it on the road?

Ivor

The barnfinds page includes an old (apparently early-1990s) magazine article. In it, a previous owner is quoted about his personal plans to update the old racecar to make it street legal. He specifically mentioned adding headlights, brake lights, a larger windshield, and a passenger seat. Apparently none of those changes were made. In my opinion, that's a good thing!

As a street car, it would need more than lights. No way would the MGB radiator be sufficient, especially with no ductwork and a marginally efficient electric fan. (I don't believe that particular fan is period correct, btw.)

I'd bet the roll hoop was probably required at some point by a race sanctioning organization. If so, things like tube diameter and wall thickness were probably specified. The horizontal tube looks like it was probably included to act as a headrest. If the car was built for one kind of racing (e.g. speed record) and then used even once for another (e.g. road racing), that might explain things like mirrors.

I'd love to see many more photos!



I hope y'all don't mind me moving this thread to the racecar sub-forum... with hopes it gets an infusion of readers there.