Actually, we found that car in a cow pasture in Southern Ontario, Canada in
the mid 1980's. It was in horrible condition. It has the Healey Works brass
number tag designating it as BN3/4. I stored it for a while until it was
purchased by Julian Aubanel (sp?) and shipped back to the U.K.
It was obviously just an engineering exercise. It had the main frame members
spaced 21" apart instead of the normal 17". An early C series 6 was stuffed
in, with a 4 speed C series gearbox. The master brake and clutch cylinders
were suspended above the pedal box and were mounted in very much home made
looking fabricated brackets. The radiator manufactured by Coventry radiator
Works was a custom made aluminum fabrication with the header tank very
closely following the curvature of the inside of the front shroud. This
allowed the assembly to be moved much further forward to make allowance for
the length of the engine.
The rear axle was a C series unit suspended as per Mk 1 Sprite design with
quarter elliptic springs anchored forward into the chassis. This would have
allowed terrific ground height clearance, a production problem they were
obviously aware of. The rear bumper was mounted on a pair of spindly steel
straps running from the chassis ahead of the axle right through the boot
area and out the rear shroud.
The speedo had a 140 MPH range, and there was a small cubby box (glove box
enclosure without a door) under the fascia on the passenger's side. I
remember the remains of a padded crash rolled edge along the top of the
fascia instead of an alloy cockpit rail.
Interestingly the doors were not just 2" shorter than a Hundred Six, they
were actually 2" shorter than a Hundred! They were from early Hundred
production with the hinges welded into the forward door casing. The rear
fenders extended way forward, about 9" further than normal. All this made
for an extremely ugly piece of work.
The fuel tank was mounted inside the car above the rear axle area with a
quick fill type centrally mounted cap similar to a 100S. The car had pressed
steel disc wheels.
At the time we "gently" mentioned it to Geoff Healey and he muttered, "God,
someone's found it", not in a pleased manner! He said it really was just an
engineering exercise to try out some ideas and was never meant to be seen by
the public. Apparently in the late 1950's while clearing out old projects
from their Warwick shop someone stuck some body panels on it and sold it
off.
How it ever got to a cow field in Southern Ontario, one can only guess.
I believe because Pat Quinn's is BN3/1 and this thing is BN3/4, maybe there
were two others, BN3/2 and BN3/3.
Rich Chrysler
Bill Emmerson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brashear, Jack, N" <JNBrashear@garverengineers.com>
To: "Dave & Marlene" <rusd@velocitus.net>; "Tracy Drummond"
<bighealey@charter.net>
Cc: <healeys@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 10:44 AM
Subject: RE: 6 cylinder in a 100 chassis
> Isn't that what the factory tried with the one-off BN3?? I think I
> read where the remains of that very car were located a few years
> ago....maybe in Australia?? Seems like it had 1/4 elliptic rear springs
> and the engine was in a separate substructure. Anyway, it apparently
> didn't work out and the concept was scrapped. I'm not certain if any if
> this is true...
> Jack
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