[Healeys] Healeys

[Greg Lemon]

A great topic, after WWII through the mid fifties Britain was on top of the 
car manufacturing world,  the Jag XK120, Healey 100, and Triumph TR2 
outperformed other sports cars and other cars for that matter at anywhere 
near the price, Rolls Royce and Bentley really were the best luxury cars in 
the in the world, Jag sedans not far behind.  A contemporary road test of 
the TR2 said it would outdrag any Aamerican car from a stoplight, and 
American car magazines spoke of the quality of British manufacturing and 
engineering.

The very nature of the cottage industry (compared to the US) of British car 
manufacturing helped them move fast with new models after the war and they 
were at the top of their game.

But the Americans started making thin wall casting lightweight V-8s and 
horsepower shot up, the Italians and Germans started making overhead cam 
motors and more sophisticated suspensions, and use of aluminum alloy in 
engines for their mainstream cars, while the bread and butter British sports 
cars and sedans soldiered on with the live axles, lots of cast iron, and the 
same motors for years.

The Mini, MGB, and E-type were the last hurrahs of the of Great Britain's 
motor industry, the B maybe not as modern as the other two, but certainly 
well designed, built and engineered.

Another of the real killers was unibody construction, which cost so much 
more to tool up for, the small cottage industry, relatively low production 
nature of the British industry which had been a boon after the war, where a 
few blokes with some know how and tools could put together an awfully good 
sports car (Donald Healey) suddenly became a problem,  as the capital needed 
to design and manufacture unibody cars and update them on a regular basis 
was just not there.  The Spridget and MGB are good examples, yes they were 
nice unibody sports cars, but between the fact that they continued to sell, 
and the fact the retooling for a whole new design was so expensive, both 
cars remained in production for practically ever.

The whole BMC/BL idea was probably a good one if Britain wanted to stay in 
the game as a major power in auto manufacture, and not a country of small 
limited production builders like Lotus, Aston and TVR, but it was either too 
late (similar to the consolidations of some of the non big three 
manufacturers in the states in the 50s)  or poorly executed (certainly) and 
failed.

Greg Lemon