An interesting sports car

Take a look at this big Healey. Just another Austin-Healey 3000 Mk.III you might say. Take another look. It's 6 inches wider for a start, and it's fitted with a 4-litre Rolls Royce engine from the R series Princess Van Den Plas. No it's not a hot rod, it's the second of three prototype Austin-Healey 4000s. Maybe we shouldn't mention the "Austin" bit because these 3 cars didn't proceed from the Healey workshop to British Leyland as expected. Donald and Geoffrey Healey built these cars to replace and update the now aging 3000 (this was 1968). BMC had decided to drop the Vanden Plas 4-litre R from their range. This was going to cause some sort of embarassment because they weren't able to get out of their arrangement with Rolls-Royce to take over 5000 of their alloy inlet-over-exhaust 4-litre engines per year. Healeys thought that with this abundant supply of engines which were lighter and more powerful than the old truck engines they had been using they could make a new car that was faster and better handling than the old one. They did this by cutting BJ8s down the centre and welding a six-inch strip into the entire length of the car which made room for the new power plant. Three prototypes were built but BMC were not interested. This was the end of a long relationship. BMC had just merged with Jaguar and thought that the new car would interfere with sales of the E-type. For some reason they continued to put out sports cars with the old 6-cylinder truck engine in the form of the MGC. Leyland appeared to me to be masters of bad decisions over there as well as in Australia. Anyway, this very rare car belongs to one of our Bolwell Club members, Peter Rowland. It's not red any more. It is at the Healey Factory undergoing a complete restoration. I saw it there a month ago looking resplendent in a nice shade of white, with the rebuilt engine in place and the RR logos gleaming. I don't know how this car came to be in Australia. It's been here a long time though. I remember it being owned in the seventies by Steve and Helen Pike (of Marsh Restorations Fame).

Peter Rowland is the older brother of Rob and Ken Rowland. All three brothers, as well as their late father Laurie, have strong Bolwell links but they all have even stronger Austin-Healey ties. I have talked before about the old AHOC people and the early Nagari people being one of the same but it is very true. Robbie operates the Healey Factory. Gary Allen (who owns the very immaculate B8/57) works there as does Bolwell stalwart Ross McConnell. When Tony Opie and I were there last month, not only was the 4000 being rebuilt and a smart looking V8 powered A/Healey and a real Cobra, but the re-bodied B8/48 was being restored for the Bolwell Corporation collection and Maurice Alexander's B8/68 was being repaired after a rollover at Phillip Island.