One of my bosses ages ago had a Jensen Healey. It replaced his Sunbeam
Alpine (purchased when new). Though he enjoyed his Jensen Healey
immensely, he had a special place in his heart for his old Alpine. So, he
always loved going for a ride in my car. I have from time to time toyed
with the idea of getting a Jensen Healey. END OF ALPINE CONTENT.
I just did some web surfing and came up with these cut outs from various
sites about carbs (no factory Webers), trannys (supplied by "Chrysler", and
the later one, not mention as "ZF"):
"All Jensen Healey and Jensen GT automobiles came equipped with the
brand-new 2 litre, 16-valve Lotus built 907 engine. Home market and
European destination cars had twin 40mm Dellorto carburetors while Federal
and Japanese destination cars came with twin Stromberg carburetors. "
"All '75 models (also referred to as JH5 or even Mk lll) have impact
bumpers and 5-speed Getrag transmission."
Is the ZF tranny made by Getrag?
If you want to see a picture of the engine, there is one at the bottom of
this web page:
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/markb/JH.html
I sure doesn't look like it will fit in an Alpine to me!
"Supplied by Lotus, the 2 liter, dual overhead cam engine can trace it's
roots back to mid-60's racing. Finally punched out to 2.2 liters, this is
the same basic engine the ultra-exotic Lotus Turbo Esprit uses. Producing
140 horsepower (more than 1 hp/cubic inch), the Jensen Healey engine
propels the light car with more than adequate force. It is backed up by a
Chrysler supplied 4 speed through 1973, then a Getrag 5 speed in the later
cars."
So, not a reference to Rootes, but "Chrysler." Of course that makes sense.
"Even Healey was unhappy with the early production models. The quality
simply was not evident. "I could never hand over the keys . . with the same
degree of confidence associated with the Austin Healey.""
This problem, along with that bland front end and the tacky looking
interior, have been what has kept me from ever getting one of these cars.
For what it's worth, this was the nicest of the sites on the cars:
http://www.commandnet.net/hal/
Jay
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