[Healeys] No earlier 3000

[Peter Dzwig]

This is a repost as this got bounced and only retrned to me today. I hope that I
can still be of some help. I have re-edited it just a little so that it makes
sense again.


I built up a list of cars [ie cars with seeming 100/6 components but nominally
at least 3000s]. It seems that there are a number of cars built around the time
of the introduction of the 3000 that had 29D engines but used bits and badges
from the 100/6.

FWIW the earliest that I know about is Simon's and the latest candidate was
shipped in August 59. See http://www.healeysix.net/BN7%20%26%20BT7.htm

Interestingly all that I am aware of are left-hookers, but that may reflect the
fact that most of what I know of comes from this liat and other US-oriented
sources...

As interesting is Country Life's dated ad 18th June that can be found at
http://www.healeysix.net/periodads4.htm#WBEANCJ or the similar ad for Sports
Cars Illustrated (US) for June 1959.

Most listers are in the US so perhaps I should explain that Country Life is now,
and was much more so in the 1950s, **the** magazine for the country set and the
gentry: very much the sort of people BMC wanted to target in UK. It's not the
sort of ad they would mess up on, not after the new model had been released
three months earlier. The US market was crucial in earning valuable foreign
currency it is surprising that they should be advertising the 100/6 there too.

I find the whole thing an interesting reflection of how BMC was working at the
time and therefore of British Industry as a whole.

I can't offer a suggestion as to what was going on. I would like to believe in
the "just using up the bits" scenario. The ads seems to suggest otherwise: ads
are about building forward demand. If they were using up a lot of bits that
would suggest that they had enough of them to supply at least some cars for
(more than??) three months. Did BMC massively over-order or did they launch the
new model earlier than previously planned?

I would be delighted to hear from anyone who has one of these cars who hasn't
already been in contact or from anyone who has more info.

Was the original model designation to be 100/6 3-litre for example?

Regards,

Peter Dzwig

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Dr Peter Dzwig