1960 Austin Healey "Bug Eye" Sprite Roadster

1960 AUSTIN HEALEY “BUG EYE” SPRITE ROADSTER #ANSL27824. (Stock #4441.)

In 1958, Austin Healey offered a “little brother” to accompany the wonderful standard “Big Healey.” designed by Donald Healey himself, it is a rather diminutive true British sports car powered by a 948cc, 4-cylinder engine attached to a 4-speed manual transmission, with the higher 3 gears fully synchronized. With a quite spartan cockpit (side curtains instead of roll-up windows, for instance) the car makes-up for its lack of luxury with its abundance  of entertaining and just outright fun driving characteristics.  It was built with an independent front suspension and featured twin S.U. carburetors and has to be considered among the most entertaining of the quintessential true British sports cars of the post-war period. Our car was fully restored by marque specialists in Connecticut, “The BugEye Guys.” They have a video on their “BugEyeGuy” website describing, detailing and demonstrating all of the performance, safety and reliability modifications which were incorporated into their restoration of this particular car. Using all of the original key components of the car, 65 years of these cars being driven and serviced has resulted in the knowledge of the cars' weaknesses. This particular car has had them addressed, modified and/or corrected. Driven just 357 miles since its restoration, this may be the ultimate  Bug Eye Sprite–one which Donald Healey probably would have loved to build if he had all of the road-time and experience which has occurred since the car was offered in 1958. 357 miles since restoration. $29,000.