by Matt Hunter The title was transferred to me on a bright November day, outside a dusty airplane hangar in middle-of-nowhere Mississippi. But my guardianship started as a little boy whose feet barely scraped the floor mats in the passenger seat of grandpa’s car. As little kids, my big sister and I played “drive-thru.” We…
Spridgets: Sprites, Midgets, Bugeyes, Frogeyes. There must be a million of them and it looks as if no one owns just one. Actually, there were something under half a million (355,888) of them produced and their owners are among the most loyal afficionados around. Some of these folks have had one Spridget after another and…
A couple issues ago the Moss magazine had an article about bringing a Sprite racecar back to life—and with the owner’s intention of doing this with his kids. My thoughts returned to a day in 1993 when I purchased an MG Midget for my daughter. She drove it from high school through college and then…
By Leo Kob Our 1959 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite’s maiden voyage last October was with the Philadelphia Chapter of the Austin Healey Sports & Touring Club’s (AHSTC) frostbite tour. During a long COVID-safe picnic at Sailor’s Point (on the north side of Lake Galena in Peace Valley Park, Bucks County, PA) we relayed this luv-puppy’s…
Last year we asked you to determine the greatest British sports car of all time and after spirited voting the Jaguar E-Type – not unexpectedly – emerged victorious ahead of the Austin-Healey 3000 and Triumph TR6. This time we changed the call of the question: name your favorite British sports car manufactured since the end…
Whoever said you can’t restore a British Sports Car? I am sure there isn’t a reader out there who hasn’t looked longingly at his or her dream car sitting neglected at a nearby junkyard. To the average passerby, it looks like just another wreck, but to a British sports car lover, a Jaguar in the worst…
How can it possibly be 25 years since I acquired my first Sprite? How could I have gotten so old and still be adolescent enough to drive a Sprite to work every day? I say adolescent because of all the British sports cars, I feel that no other has the youthful exuberance of the Sprite,…
My Austin-Healey Sprite MK IV was built by the Austin Motor Company Limited from parts manufactured in the U.K., at Abingdon, Berkshire, on July 5 in the year 1969. I purchased it on September 5, 1969, from Stockton Motors, Huntsville, AL. This was my third Sprite/Midget and was purchased primarily as a vehicle to get…
As I spent so many years playing with Sprites, folks think I have something against the “Big” Healey, but in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. I started motorsport around the time of the Healey 100’s introduction, and as many of the enthusiasts of the day, coveted one of these great-looking sports cars….
Life is so complicated these days that simplicity once again is assuming the mantle of a virtue. Yet the auto industry continues to offer an incredible array of equipment that serves to distance drivers from the pure driving experience. Some of today’s performance machines are so over-engineered with systems like active suspensions and speed variable…
