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Austin-Healey Sprite - from ugly duckling to crowd favorite

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Created on February 27, 2021

Reading time 9min

Written by:

Bruno von Rotz

Photos:

Daniel Reinhard

46

Archiv

42

Daniel Reinhard

46

Archiv

42

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Summary

With the Austin-Healey Sprite, BMC filled a gap in the car range of the late fifties. The small and lightweight roadster was well received. Only its frog-eyed face, which makes it so desirable today, was not so well received at the time. On the other hand, the price was right back then and it was possible to make it faster. This report is about an early Austin-Healey Sprite Mark I from 1959 and shows it in historical and current photos, supplemented by sales literature and sound samples.

This article contains the following chapters

Surprise
Simple and robust
Technology from the shelf
Sportiness at an affordable price
Design with special features
Ugly?
More fun thanks to the hairstyle?
Only three years in its original form
Minimalism with added value

Estimated reading time: 9min

Preview (beginning of the article)

Inexpensive sports cars were in short supply at the end of the fifties, as the British Motor Company had correctly recognized. To fill this gap, they once again turned to Donald Healey. The result was the Austin-Healey Sprite, an extremely popular roadster with a large fan base to this day. Nobody really expected the little Sprite when it was unveiled almost simultaneously around the world in May 1958. In Switzerland, the presentation took place from May 19, 1958 in the Kursaal in Bern (just one day before the official world premiere in Monte Carlo) and the reporting began immediately and in pages and pages - after all, the press couldn't report on a completely new sports car every day.

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