Hard Hat: ’60 Austin Healey Bugeye
We got this Bugeye from Mike M. while we were writing about the other featured Healey of the day, so we decided to go Healey again. Some background – Donald wanted a car a bloke could park in his bike shed. His own words, not ours. It was introduced to the press in 1958 and quickly became a success in sales and on the track. Most readers won’t know this but the Sprite – affectionately known as Frog Eye in the UK and Bug Eye in the States – was the first mass produced car that had a unitary construction. Not a full monocoque but close. Not bad for an inexpensive sports car. And the Sprite was to have retractable headlights like the Porsche 928 but they were scrapped. So they plunked down a pair of lights on the hood. Boom. Today’s Bugeye has a factory hard top and we just love the look. The Sprite is very original save for the newish interior. The car has quite a few factory inspector marks still visible. If you are a frequent reader, we spoke of these marks when referring to a Mercedes-Benz 280SL. In Mercedes lingo it is called Dotology because they use a lot of multi-colored dots. With the Healey, we can call it scribble-ology. Whatever you call it, it is neat to see remnants of the day it was built. The seller is asking $19,900 and you can see it on eBay by clicking here.