Left: 1959 Monte Carlo Rally with interior shot of PMO, and right: one of the 1959 Sebring team cars.
BEWARE THOSE SUPPOSEDLY DHMC SIDE-SCREENS (4 rows down, left)
TOM COULTHARD tells us: “We should just say for the benefit of the many thousands (!!!) of your loyal followers on the website that the tall sidescreens purportedly for the early Sprite hardtop currently on US eBay are DEFINITELY NOT the ones fitted to the BMC Competitions Dept-prepared works (and works-assisted) Sprites on the 1959 Monte-Carlo Rally and subsequently to the Donald Healey Motor Company-prepared entries for the 12 Hours of Sebring. There are so many times when history does not provide the firm evidence one way or another and we have to issue health warnings and caveats, so I am happy for once to be TOTALLY UNEQUIVOCAL. The attached photos readily confirm that these Sprites had Weathershields-style alloy & rubber sidescreens which had a rounded leading edge at the top, unlike the later production (hood-height) sidescreens and the ones on eBay. Whatever those sidescreens are, the windows are said to be glass which would never have been used for competition in period – Perspex was invariably preferred for both weight and safety reasons. Anyone thinking of sniping a late high bid should beware. They may have been intended for another car (the MGA is often mooted in this context, but I have never had the opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison), or they may have been made locally for the numerous US suppliers of improved sidescreens for British sports cars whose adverts adorn the period American magazines”.
ANOTHER BMC HARDTOP
The white hardtop having found a home in Sweden, here is another starting at 99p. SOLD for £280 [Sven Eckhardt]
Lightweight Radiator Supports from Belfast are currently being offered on ebay at £65 – claimed to save you 338g in weight!!!
PHIL ZAMLYNSKI in the USA
has been forging links with fellow Sebring replica builders on his side of the “pond”. It turns out both he and Jerry Etzel are working towards building alloy coupe tops. Naturally they have been studying Darren Welsh’s photos of the one he built for Sven Eckhardt in Germany, which adorn his Creative Classics website.
Keith Newitt is urgently seeking a cowling (above) to go between the steering wheel and dashboard on his Frogeye. NOW SORTED, THANK YOU
A NEW HOME FOR THE STILES/SUTHERLAND SEBRING SPRITE
It takes a message from Joe Armour in Australia for me to discover that the Sebring team car formerly owned by Butch Gilbert in the USA has now been acquired by Warren Kennedy of Milton Keynes in the UK for his personal collection.
Randy Zimmerman let me know of these side-screens for a DHMC ‘works’ hardtop on ebay in Florida, USA NOW SOLD at $659 (30th Jan)
[but see Tom Coulthard’s comments above!]
Mike Tearle rightly points out that the Speedwell hardtops shown on this page were designed and produced by Williams & Pritchard. Mike has one of these on his project Frogeye (right)
Some more of those Jensen drawings kindly sent to me by Peter Seaman – are the right-hand pair early ideas for the Sprite?
BMC hardtop for sale on ebay at £150 SOLD
[Pierre Lequeux]
The Practical Classics Restoration Show at the NEC on 28 & 29 March looks like it might be worth going to. Advance tickets £12 (£11 for oldies like me)
ASHLEY LAMINATES
Graham Nicklas tells me: “I worked for Ashley. It was my first job when I left school in 1965. Mr Waddington took me on as a trainee at £3.50 a week. My first job was laminating boot lids and parcel shelves. The foreman was a guy called Eddy Daniels. I left at the age of 20. The last things I worked on with Eddy were the moulds for the Spitfire and E-type hardtops. Their workshop was in Twyford Road, Bishops Stortford. Mr Waddington died in Spain as far as I can recall”.
ALAN CAMERON:
“See images of Riley and Wolseley rear brakes (left).
Pete’s have one or two extra holes I don’t recognise”.
LUBBERT MUSSCHE:
“Yes, this backplate (below) is from a Riley 1.5. I also have these for my Sebring Sprite (alloy) that I am building”.
Riley 1.5 backplate
Riley (left) & Wolseley plates
MORE SPEEDWELL COMPONENTS
SPEEDWELL ALUMINIUM CYLINDER HEADS
Kees van Beijmerwerdt has mentioned to me that there is some very useful information on Speedwell alloy heads on http://mk1-performance-conversions.co.uk/which_head.htm
Worth reading before you buy.
Pete Taylor is looking for confirmation that what he has is backplates from a Riley 1.5 Can anyone confirm please? Feedback [Thanks to John Poulter who has confirmed it is from a Riley 1.5]
AN 11th STEAMLINER?
Bill Emerson told me of an 11th ‘works’ prototype in Pennsylvania. I’ve since discovered he was referring to 776 KNX which is an earlier car, which took part in the ’64 Sebring race. Wow – that could have been embarrassing!!
JUDSON SUPERCHARGER kit for Sprite/Midget for sale on ebay expiring 8 Feb currently at Buy-it-now price of £2,100
[Pierre Lequeux]
[Christoph Klamert]
SPEEDWELL ALLOY HEAD
Currently being offered on ebay (SOLD at US $ 630)
expires 17 Jan 2015
It’s a GT version, for 948 or 1098cc engines
(Carriage to UK expensive!)
Regarding the Wolseley brakes mentioned below, Thomas Willig points out that: “Sprites need 5/8″ wheel cylinders and no Lockheed ones of that size are available so that you have to either fit a proportioning valve or have the original cylinders re-sleeved from 3/4″ down to 5/8″. The re-sleeving is quite complicated, as a new piston has to be made as well”.
Speedwell cast iron cylinder heads
See Speedwell Parts page
A SET OF WOLSELEY 8″ REAR BRAKES
currently on ebay at £220 – SOLD £310
These are Lockheed items rather than the more usual Girling ones used on the Sebring Sprite which come from a Riley 1.5. However both types are now very hard to find.
Nikolaj Mortensen‘s racing Midget (see For Sale page)) has now been reduced to £10,500
SEBRING & OTHER DEFINITIONS
See remarks by Mark Holland and Alan Anstead on the “Your Comments” page
BRAKE CALIPER BRACKETS
Sven Eckhardt (again) tells me he can now offer brackets to convert the Frogeye stub axle to take a disc brake caliper, either using the original Girling Type 10 or the more recent Vauxhall/ATE alternative, and with the further option of using either the Sebring hub or the standard BMC splined hub. He has had a CNC program written for this purpose. Price will be
€330 for a pair of brackets in elastic stainless steel alloy. ATE calipers are more readily available in his home country, Germany than in the UK. Contact Sven if you need further help or wish to order.
SHOULD WE BE MORE RELAXED ABOUT DEFINITIONS ?
Sven Eckhardt tells me that he is acquiring the ex-Stan Annis car 4444 DA from Paul Webb which I would call a “standard-bodied Sebring Sprite”. Sven queries this because the car has the Lockheed ‘Thin Disc’ brake set-up rather than the Girling one and steel wheels rather than wires. Jonathan Whitehouse-Bird stated that 142 FBH with its Thin Disc brakes does not fall into the “Sebring Category” while Tom Coulthard’s definition of a Sebring Sprite suggests otherwise as merely a “Frogeye with discs” in Spritely Years. I wonder whether we really need to be this precise. ‘In period’, cars were often described as “Sprinzel Sprites”, or “Speedwell Sprites” or “Alexander Sprites”, etc while sometimes only have one or two non-standard tuning parts supplied by those firms. In the USA Terry Cowan has two cars 96 RPE and UUV 398, both Peel-bodied Sebrings in my book, but these were always known over there as a Sprinzel and a Speedwell respectively so why shouldn’t he refer to them by those names? Jack Wheeler has asked me why we call all these cars Sebring Sprites when they were never given that name in his racing days of the 60’s. So what do you think? Should we be a bit more easy in how we name the cars – they are all “Special Sprites” after all !? Your comments would be appreciated, via Feedback.
HARDTOP REQUIRED FOR MK1 MIDGET
Bengt Albertson races his Midget in Sweden and is urgently looking for a hardtop (not fastback style) and side-screens. If anyone can help please contact me via Feedback
Bengt has now acquired a suitable hardtop and side-screens thank you.
DAVID DICKINSON says:
” Although I have sold my lovely 523CLF I am still an avid follower of the site. Keep up the good work and best Wishes to you and all Sprite drivers for 2015″
Jonathan Whitehouse-Bird has recently learned from Bill Emerson in the US that his Mark 2 Sebring Sprite 9253 WD had competed at the Bahamas Speed Week, Nassau, during December 1962. Further trawling of the internet and a chat with Nassau expert/author Terry O’Neil has revealed the following: “Austin Healey Sebring Sprite – 9253 WD – race #42 was entered in five races at Nassau by Donald Healey (a good friend of Sir Sydney Oakes, who helped to organise the event) and was driven by John Colgate, from Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York State”.
Results for the Sebring Sprite were as follows:
Dec 2nd 1962 – Nassau Tourist Trophy (under 2-litre heat) 4th overall, 2nd in class (6/8GT class).
Dec 2nd 1962 – Nassau Tourist Trophy10th overall, 2nd in class (6/8GT class).
Dec 7th 1962 – Governor’s Trophy (under 2-litre heat) 9th overall, 2nd in class (6/8GT class).
Dec 7th 1962 – Governor’s Trophy 13th overall, 2nd in class (6/8GT).
Dec 9th 1962 Nassau Trophy DNF, completed 20 laps (about the time a heavy rain storm hit the circuit).
Jonathan has attached a few newly discovered images from the event, plus a link to a film made of the 1962 event. 9253 WD makes a very brief appearance at 09:09 min’s. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dpL3SRAWU0&app=desktop
If anyone else can provide further information relating to 9253 WD competing at this event, he’d love to hear from them. Contact me initially via Feedback and your message will be forwarded.
Jonathan also referred me to another film clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDrJP9U8xTY in which the two ‘works’ streamliners HNX 455D & 456D, can be seen, very early in the film (1.25), at Sebring in 1966. Later, at about 11.55. is an excellent shot of 770 KNX (No.61) leading its sister car 776 KNX (No.67) at Sebring in 1964. Brilliant stuff! Thanks, Jonathan.
