The year is 1958, and Donald Healey, founder of Austin-Healey, needs a “gimmick ... a solid 24k gold keychain replica of the car. The steering wheel and all of the interior knobs were made ...

One might think the two industrialists got together and agreed to build snazzy sports cars like this issue’s 1961 Austin-Healey 3000 ... curly maple wood dash and steering wheel.

The golden Austin Healey was as ostentatious as it could get with a solid ivory steering wheel, mink-finished seats and gold plating everywhere you’d normally see bright metal. Even the disc ...

so the rack-and-pinion steering came from the Morris Minor and the brake and clutch master cylinders from MG. The construction of the new Austin-Healey was advanced. Its designer, Barry Bilbie ...

Known as the Big Healey to differentiate the model from the diminutive Austin-Healey Sprite ... thanks to its firm ride, heavy steering and grunty engine. Nonetheless it remains highly popular ...

Austin-Healey was then known for its larger ... and I find myself behind the right-hand- drive steering wheel of car number 54, the very Sprite in which racers Hugh Sutherland and Phil Stiles ...