Austin-Healey : the legend keeps rolling!

England's Donald Healey was a fighter pilot during World War One. He also developed a passion for automobiles and won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1931. Fifteen years later, at the age of 48, he started to build cars that bore his own name despite using different brands of mechanical components. In 1952, Healey unveiled at the British International Motor Show in London an all-new sports car powered by an Austin-sourced, 4-cylinder engine. Leonard Lord, who was then President of the British Motor Corporation (BMC), became so enamored with this roadster that he immediately purchased the manufacturing rights... even before the show doors opened to the public. His plan was to export the car in America where the lack of domestic sports machines made consumers fall madly in love with English two-seaters.