The Sprite Site

History of the car
The car was purchased by my father second hand in September of 1962 from Flag Motor Company in Westport CT. Flag is still at the same location today.

Through the 60's, Dad used the car for his primary vehicle, and Mom and Dad raced it in amateur competition at Limerock and Thompson raceways in New York.

Though my Dad never won a race, winning wasn't the point. He and Mom had a wonderful time together going to the races, Dad driving, and Mom in the pits, or when the four kids got to be too much of a handful, Mom would sit with us and be Dad's statistician.

I don't remember any of this, except for a single memory from when I was no more than five, of "helping" Dad work on the car in the garage.

(The original receipt)

Eventually, Dad parked it and moved on to a more respectable family car, a Renault Dauphine which was "sometimes fun but really was a DOG", to quote Dad. But he never sold it, and in 1980, when I was about to ship to England, Dad gave me the car. The intent was to ship it to England for my use over there. So during a two week leave, I spent the time getting the car running so I could get it to the shipping dock.

Unfortunately, the day before I was to ship it the clutch failed. As it turned out, it was only the pin connecting the thruster arm to the cylinder, but it was too late for me to fix what I thought was going to be a major problem.

(I didn't find the slipped pin until almost two years later when I returned from England.) In the end it worked out OK - I drove a left hand drive 1968 Spitfire while I was over there.

Upon my return from England, I got the car running again and drove it for a while at college. Later I stopped driving the Sprite and moved up to a 67 MGB. When I left Connecticut and went to Arizona; I didn't have any way to transport it or the MGB. So I sold the MGB and left the Sprite in Connecticut.

For the next ten years it sat in my parents backyard on blocks, and covered with heavy plastic. While out there it survived hurricanes, storms and snow.

Then my parents decided to retire to New Mexico. If I wanted to keep the car, I had to move it - and fast! So, Over Thanksgiving of 1996 I went back and pulled it out of the yard and rebuilt the brakes to the point where it could be winched onto a truck for transport here to Washington.

(The original purchase agreement)

I contracted with Pacific Eastern Express (Palmdale, CA) to have it trucked. They came by to pick up the car after I had come back to Washington, and then delivered it the day after Christmas, 1996. It had just started snowing here, and the transport driver made a super human effort to get it to my apartment complex before the snow hit. I was in Connecticut for Christmas.

That was the problem. The next day, the combination of snow and rain proved too much for the car port under which the car was sitting, and the carport collapsed onto it!

After all those years, it was transported here just in time to get crushed!

The actual damage was minimal. The windshield was totaled, but the glass was already cracked, the rubber shot, the chrome heavily scratched and the cast aluminum mountings heavily pitted. So I don't consider that much of a loss. (When I find out the replacement price, I may change my mind.) The bad news was, the original steering wheel was bent and cracked. The good news is, there is an antique steering wheel refurbisher just 15 minutes up the road from me.

Now it's time to get started on a complete restoration of my Dad's Austin-Healy. Take a peak at the photo gallery to see detailed pictures of the car throughout it's life, and visit the restoration pages to see how and what I'm doing, and make comments. This is a first time for me so I am depending on the kindness of others to help me out!

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This page was last updated on Sunday, June 17, 2001 01:09 PM