Quite a number (I don't know how many) of Sprites, both Mark 1 and 2, came from the BMC assembly line at Abingdon to the Donald Healey Motor Company's factory at Warwick to be "up-graded", the first registered owner invariably being Mr. D. Healey, The Cape, Warwick. This car was one such, and one of its early owners, John Mills, lived just 35 miles away in Wordsley. DHMC fitted it with wire wheels, together with the Girling disc brake set-up, including the twin master cylinder conversion, and larger rear drums, plus a laminated windscreen and the company's own hardtop.

The car is now (2019) in the hands of Ian Turner, who acquired it from ex-racer Tony Griffiths minus engine and gearbox. Tony had restored and re-painted its bodyshell ready for re-assembly, which involved seam-welding patches into each sill close to the jacking point and fitting a new wheel arch section on the nearside. Both rear arches have had the inner lip turned up to give additional tyre clearance. He sold it to Ian with re-built front suspension and supplied him with all new interior trim, and a new wiring loom converted to take an alternator.

2019 Update:

Ian's son Mark Turner tells me his Dad's car is now back on the road and has sent me these pictures. He tells me that: "The next job is to tidy it up; Adrian at Finishing Touch bodyshop (near Locking in Weston Super Mare) who races his own Sebring, is sorting the bonnet out, so (the car) will get better gradually.  It would be good to find out about its first owner (after DHMC), but I fear we never will.  Both Dad and Jonathan Whitehouse-Bird used to see it around Stourbridge and Wordsley (where the then owner, John Mills, lived ) in the 70s. It still has a lot of the Healey mods which is great (it was supplied to Healeys from BMC)".

Feb 2022: Did I ever send you this about 6699WD from Bob Kemp at the AH Club, (see right column) its filled in its early history which is great?  However it's also cost me a load of money as I then had to buy a blower :-)  I've also managed to get a set of Type 10s for it so it can go back to original.

I've got a spare dash in the car (below right) as it had an awful lot of gauges. I've still got the original with the writing on the back.  The question is would the boost gauge have been in the dash where the indicator repeater was or in some other position?  You can see the dash as it was, quite a job to work out what everything is with the spot lights and extra gauges.  I'm sure this would have been with the 1275 so it had lost its original speedo and rev counter and probably the boost gauge.