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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The offerings from Gooding & Company typically represent an outstanding cross-section of collector cars and the selection at the 2014 Scottsdale auction ranged from MGAs to a Ferrari 250 GT Series I Cabriolet that sold for $6.1-million. British cars were in abundance and these are some of the more interesting selections that were offered. …
Domenic & Davana Valentino’s 1959 AN5 Sprite By Andrew Schear As he cranked the starter, the supercharged 948cc motor roared to life with a high raspy idle and puffs of smoke from the dual Abarth exhaust. After 15 seconds the idle dropped and Domenic and Davana Valentino motored out of the parking lot of their…
I read with some interest the story on Herschel Silverstone’s real Sebring Sprite in the Fall issue of Moss Motoring and started thinking to myself, “Maybe not so real!” Geoff Healey and I did not actually homologate (the FTA’s technical term for registering the specification of a competition car) until the fall of 1960.The first…
Old British cars seek me out. Honest. The more needy they are, the more likely they are to end up on my doorstep. Old British cars find me. In the Midwest, back in my misspent youth, it seemed there was always a family who took in strays of all varieties. It was usually a family…
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…
