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SEBRING NEWS
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Latest News ~ November 2009 |
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Replica Kit
Prices ~ Archers Garage
have reluctantly increased their prices for the Fastback & Coupé tops by
£60 due to the windscreen cost having risen by that amount. |
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Laurent
Derancourt of Amicale Spridget (France) has sent me this
photo (left) of FISC Series contender Pierre Aguettant's Lenham
Sprite at Montlhery in 1988.
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From Bryn Rossiter, news of an Orangy-Red Sebring Coupe back in 1974
Here's a
little memoir which might fill in a gap in someone's Sprite history. It
must been 1974 +/- a year. I bought a Sprite coupé which I think was a
Sebring Sprite which I'd seen advertising in Motoring News. I was living
in Windsor and the car had been used for autocross successfully by
someone in Bagshot, Fleet or somewhere in the Surrey/Hants border area.
It was painted an orangey-red and bodily was identical to the Sebrings
on your site. It had wire wheels and a full race A-series engine with, I
think, two big SU carbs. It was extensively lightened with even, I
think, the inner mudguards having been replaced with alloy. The
registration was two letters and four numbers, possibly WD something. I
was short of space and ended up selling it, unused, off my front lawn to
a pair of guys from the Midlands who were very excited about it so I
probably didn't know how potentially valuable it was. I wonder if this
rings any bells, or fits in with anyone else's memory? It would be
interesting to know which car it was and what happened to it. Both
before and since, I had a lot of Spridgets, having passed my driving
test on an Iris Blue Frogeye in Cardiff when I was 17 around 1964.
Thanks for a great site which I visit regularly wearing my Sebring
sweatshirt! Regards, Bryn.
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Book
Review by Paul Woolmer :-"This all new book has been published
to mark the 80th birthday of Sir Stirling Mo ss.
Earlier this year, Goodwood set out to find 80 cars that Sir
Stirling had driven & raced and to display them at the 2009 Revival
from the 18th to 20th September.
September 17th was Sir Stirling’s 80th
Birthday. This book is a record of these 80 cars, never before
seen together. It gives the reader both new and historic
photographs, together with short descriptions of each car and the
part they played in his career. It is a book you can pick up when
you have a few minutes & read short passages about cars most of us
only dream about. The cars range from real exotics including
Maserati 250F, Aston Martin DBR 1 & 2, Jaguar D Type & Ferrari 250
SWB & GTO through to every day cars like a Morris Minor, a Berkeley &
even a Go-Kart. Austin Healeys are well represented, with both a 100S
& two Sebring Sprites being incl uded.
Stirling Moss 80/80 comes with an ingenious gate-fold soft cover
both at the front & back with autographs & personal messages from
many of Sir Stirling’s friends & colleagues. It has 174 full colour
pages & at £11.99 or £19.99 signed by the man himself it represents
very good value. Authors:
Words Peter Russell. New photographs by Jonathan Green. ISBN
No. 978-0-9563679-0-7
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Two
Sebrings in
Historic Sports Car
Race
in France ~
Full Report |
Pete
Taylor acquires Wayne Gibson's Sebring project
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Gordon
Higgs' is making good progress with his new Sebring Coupé
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Pete Taylor, whose
son Paul has been supplying us with Sebring circuit stickers, has bought the droop-nosed
aluminium Sebring Sprite replica and its development continues at
Archers Garage.
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1965
Works Sebring achieves US$ 208,000 on ebay but owner Gary Kohs buys it
back: he says he couldn't bear to part with it! full story to follow
 
photo courtesy
of Henry Camisasca |
PMO
at Cholmondeley Pageant of Power
Sharon Woolmer recently drove PMO at this second running of the event,
in changeable weather conditions. She was quicker than much of the more
exotic machinery ~ but it took Paul a whole afternoon to clean off all
the mud! |
RTL 304
Chris Keeble has kindly sent me some pictures of his original fastback
"Sebring" so I will shortly be adding them, together with its history to
the website. |
I gather there was
quite a celebration recently when Sebring stalwart Jack
Wheeler reached his 80th birthday. I hope to have
pictures soon.
Belated Congratulations Jack
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I recently had
an email from Warwick Edgington's youngest son, Adam, in which
he recalls: "going out in EAO, under the tonneau in the
passenger seat in the rain with my Dad, driving into puddles.
Shouting 'motorboats' as the spray engulfed the car
~ we still shout
it today as we go through puddles"
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September 2009 |
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Historic records of the Donald Healey Motor Co
I
have heard many times that Donald Healey's son, Geoff, kept an
"exercise book" in which he recorded details of all the "Special"
cars they built. It was thought that this had been sold with his
collection and might now be in the hands of Bill Emerson in the
States where he is hoping to open a Healey Museum. However Nick
Conklin who is restoring an early competition Sprite has learnt from
Bill that in fact the records are still held by Margo Healey and
that she is unwilling, at present, to reveal their contents -
perhaps during her lifetime. Maybe one day "all will be revealed!"
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Charlie Clegg gets
"Driver of the Day" award at Silverstone on 184 FGJ's first outing
(below). |
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Having just completed
the build of 184 FGJ with the assistance of Archers Garage and
his father, Chris, Charlie Clegg got the car MOT'd and entered it in two
30 minute Equipe GTS races at Silverstone. Despite having only a 998cc
engine Charlie battled it out with a Lancia Fulvia throughout one race,
and was awarded the Driver of the Day Award. |
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184 FGJ uses a new
floor pan to which has been fitted the aluminium fastback body
previously attached to his father's historic Sebring, S221. The
registration number also came with S221 when purchased, before Chris
managed to obtain the original S221 plate. |
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Etretat-Benouville Hill Climb,
Normandy, 22/23 August 2009 |
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Four Sprites and
a similar number of big Healeys from the Austin-Healey Club made a
trip to France for this 1600 metre hill-climb. All the cars were
gathered in the market square of the seaside resort of Etretat on
Saturday morning for scrutineering (left). This was a rather
long-winded procedure but we eventually completed the exercise and
were able to make two practice runs in the afternoon. The time to
beat seemed to be 60 seconds, and my first run was just over 68! On
the Sunday we were allowed 3 timed runs and I was pleased to get
below 64, but Neil Cameron was even quicker despite only having
998cc to my 1330! Pat Cooper was quickest Healey breaking the 60 sec
barrier with a 59.60. An enjoyable weekend for all.
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(courtesy of Jackie Baker) |
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Do you have a supercharger
fitted to your Sebring? If so you can enhance the exterior of your car
with this beautiful reproduction of the original s/c badge. |
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Produced by Nick Conklin in
the USA, he is prepared to sell copies for $75 plus post & packing. Use
feedback if interested |
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Can you identify the bonnet on Harold
Sailer's Lenham Le Mans Coupe? |
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Alan
Anstead's replica Sebring Sprite Coupé |
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Although
Alan built his replica quite some time ago now, you may like to see
a few pictures he sent me recently, of the car during its
construction.
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News from Paul Woolmer about PMO & WSM Sanction II
Our next event in PMO is the Cholmondely
Pageant of Power, Sharon will be competing in her, whilst I will
be driving the last works 3000 rally car to be prepared at
Abingdon. I will try to send you some pics afterwards. The car
will also be appearing in a book to commemorate Stirling Moss's
80th birthday. They have picked Stirling’s 80
favourite vehicles, he has driven, & PMO is one of them
(probably in 79th or 80th
place!).
The WSM’s we are building are
officially sanctioned by Douglas & Tony Wilson Spratt & are
called ‘Sanction 2 WSMs’. Each
will have an official WSM body plate with a unique body
number in the same way as the originals. So far we have only
shown a couple of pictures at Race Retro of the moulds being
taken from the last original unused shell. From that we have
2 firm orders, with a third looking imminent, one as a race
car the other 2 as fast road cars. As in period, the race
cars are called ‘Sprint’ & the road cars ‘GT’, but again as
in period a customer can pick & choose from the list of
options to spec, the car they want.
One of the few things Douglas insisted on when we asked for
his approval to build more WSM’s
was that we would stick to his original mantra not to supply
‘kits’ for enthusiasts to build their own. This is exactly
how he worked in period, - in that way he kept control of
the build quality of each car bearing his name.
The minimum we will supply is a finished shell, fitted to a
chassis with doors, bonnet, boot & headlamp covers fitted,
including windscreen, rear screen &
side-screens. We can receive the
customer's chassis in any condition, either quarter
or semi elliptic, as they were in period. One major
advantage of a Sanction 2 WSM is that we are confident of
getting FIA GTS papers because we have documentary proof of
a fibreglass WSM being raced
internationally in period.
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and, fromTom Coulthard:
I am now the sole supplier of copies of
Spritely-Years,
with only a few left. These are available at
£35+postage.
Contact Tom via email on
tom.coulthard@talk21.com
I have managed to obtain, on eBay, a previously unacknowledged
W&P (Williams & Pritchard) hardtop - the ‘missing link’
between the fibreglass Sebring hardtop and the ‘Series II’
Sebring tops. I’ve been aware for a while that the Sebring top
won’t fit the Mark II Sprite – it fouls the boot opening, but
the W&P adverts specify that their hardtop fits both Marks I and
II – ergo there must have been a separate model for the Mark II
– the black one in the attached pics.
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EAO back on the
market:
Jonathan tells me he
is quietly offering his recently completed restoration for sale at
an £85k asking price. You can view the details using the following
link:
http://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/classic-car-page.php/carno/64324
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New " tall"
sidescreens for
"Works" hardtops - new contact is:
pete.farmer@virgin.net |
Ian Grainger's 2341UE gets its supercharger back |
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Ian has just
sent me these photos of the supercharger re-installed in his Sebring
Sprite. The car was super- charged when new and uses the original
cylinder head. Clive Baker has asked to to see the car at the
Silverstone Classic event. |
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JJO's season to date, ending with a bit of a
mishap: |
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Curborough Test Day 2nd April |
Gurston Down
Hill Climb 19th April |
Cadwell Park
Track Day 1st May |
MIRA Sprint
9th May |
Shelsley Walsh
Hill Climb 15th May |
Every Spring the
Austin-Healey Club's Richard Mason organises a very useful practice day
at the Curborough Sprint course at which, this year, I shared JJO with
friend, Martin Brazil. |
I hadn't been to
Gurston for over 30 years but that was no real excuse for coming 6th out
of 8 Sprites there. An enjoyable day's driving though. |
Eamonn Matthews from
Australia, and I enjoyed many laps around Cadwell's beautiful circuit in
JJO with other MGs on Track. It's 15 corners are quite demanding. |
[No photo - they
don't allow cameras!]
I was disappointed
with my result finding the car lacked grip all day. |
The Austin-Healey Club held informal runs up the hill as part of the
Healey 3000's 50th anniversary. This picture was taken on my first run
up the hill which went OK though it felt a bit slippery. Unfortunately
on my 2nd run, I lost the tail coming out of the Esses, mounted the bank
and flipped the car on to its side. Needless to say there is
considerable chassis and body damage so we are going to miss Prescott
next weekend, and probably a few other events. However JJO will be back
in action ere long, you may be sure. |
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California-based Dean Powers begins his
long-awaited Sebring build |
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Jonathan solves EAO's engine troubles |
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On
the run-up to the May celebrations of the Sprite's 50 years last year,
EAO was ceremoniously fired up but appeared to have no oil
pressure, as a result of which its engine seized solid.
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Well,
the car's owner Jonathan Whitehouse-Bird recently lifted the motor from
the car and took it to
'Big Colin' of Cambridge Rebores, a company recommended by his friend
Dr. John Davies. Here he takes up the story:
"One
of the guys there - Dick,
(seen in the photo, right above)
stripped the thing in an attempt to discover what had caused the
engine to seize. All came apart easily and the crank rotated after
con-rod ends were removed! Main caps came off and all was inspected
with no damage or wear to the bearings or crank - phew!. However,
when it came to removing the pistons and con-rods, it was discovered
that ALL four gudgeon pins had seized! Eventually, Dick got rods
and pistons out of the block, but a special press (with a couple of
tonnes pressure) applied to the pins struggled to remove them.
Damage was irreparable and £300 worth of Powermax 948cc (+0.60")
pistons were now a pile of scrap - aargh!!! With no replacements
available (ultra-rare now), the only other option was to use 998cc
flat-tops, which of course meant a rebore. So, the whole thing has
been given the 'full treatment', including machining the caps and
line boring to provide an oil tight rear seal. Fortunately, Dick had
some 998cc flat-tops on the shelf (at +0.20"), so these were used
along with new fully-floating type con-rods. The engine is now
running at about 1000cc.
Hey ho! It's all water under the bridge now! And the oil pressure
mystery....? Well that was simple...! The reason no pressure
registered on the gauge was down to the fact that I'd used a
second-hand oil pipe / block union which was completely blocked with
old hard 'gunk' and wasn't letting oil through. I probably did have
pressure within the engine, but no way was it ever going to register
on the gauge".
I don't recall
hearing before of gudgeon pins seizing in new pistons in that way, but
perhaps you have?
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News from John Sprinzel - 20th
March, 2009
(up-dated with photo 6th May)
Caryl and I had a great trip to Australia last
November, and though it was all a bit tiring, doing five events
in one week, we really had a ball. The Sydney and Melbourne area
Sprite Clubs are most enthusiastic, especially as our favourite
car was assembled in Oz for some years. Also the Healey
Owners club in Victoria has many Sprite members, plus the
use of the finest club premises I have ever visited. They are
actually owned by Motor Clubs - Jaguar and Triumph I believe,
and feature large and comfortable rooms with bar and a stage
complete with a  big screen for films where I showed the 1958
Shell Alpine Rally DVD which has many terrific clips of the
three Sprites in the car's successful International Rally debut.
The walls of the clubhouse are lined with super pictures from
the golden days of motorsport, and have two panels with famous
signatures. Distances in Australia are, of course, huge, and our
trip with the Bug Eye Barn's owner Tony Bennetto
to Ray English's home near the coast involved a hard day
of driving through the area which has since been devastated by
those forest fires. We stayed a couple of days with Ray and
enjoyed his famous "Sprite Room" where one of the make's
best known historians keeps an incredible collection of records
and memorabilia. His own Sebring Sprite (J.S is pictured
right with Ray's beautiful car) which he has
owned for many years, from back when he was racing very
competitively, is in wonderful condition and in regular use, so
we collected our take-out dinner and the morning papers each
day. The final event in Victoria was a wonderful dinner and
Sprite enthusiasts from as far afield as Brisbane and Adelaide
joined in an evening celebrating the Frogeye.
Next up will be the July "Conclave" of North American Healey
Clubs, which will be held in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
These annual meets are superbly organized and have literally
hundreds of Healey cars and Healey boats on display. The
condition of these cars is awe-inspiring, and is a tribute to
the enthusiasm of American and Canadian owners of British Sports
Cars. The week long event will give me a chance to spend time
with two of the Special Guests - Peter Riley and Anne
Wisdom, who were both very successful work's drivers not
only in the "Big" Healeys, but also in Spridgets - Anne, who was
also our first secretary at Speedwell, did two events, the RAC
and Corsica, in Sebring Sprites with Pat Moss. They were
also good friends and near neighbours when Caryl and I had our
small farm close to theirs a few miles from Silverstone Circuit.
Some of you may have met son Tim, who was very active driving
the service vehicle backing up and fettling on many of the
Classic Rallies in recent years.
My current Frog Eye PMO 200, is still going strong after
sixteen years on Molokai, where it is my only car, but with just
sixty miles of paved road, our island is a perfect Sprite place.
In that time I have never ever had the hood up, which does show
something of our climate.
Happy Sprite-ing and
Aloha,
John
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John
Sprinzel has now exhausted his supply of the 2nd edition of
"Spritely Years"
so all future enquiries should be directed to Tom Coulthard |
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8426
UE (the Roadster) which was driven by Ed Leavens and John
Colgate at Sebring in 1961 (finishing 3rd in class and 25th
overall) - is up for sale, again this time at auction on March 14 ,
at the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, Florida, USA
~ for further information take a look at RM Auctions website at:
www.rmauctions.com/CarDetails.cfm?SaleCode=AM09&CarID=r187
SOLD for US $69,300 (abt
£48,500) (or AUS $ 102,000) |
For older news items
from 2007 and 2008 click here
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