THE EYES HAVE IT

This frogeye' Sprite was an early works rally car that was later much-modified to compete on the Targa Florio, Circuito del Mugello and at the Nürburgring

-  James Elliott

PLEASE CAST YOUR MIND back to the Models page in the July 2021 edition of Octane (number 217, the one with a McLaren F1 and Porsche 911 GT1 and Mercedes CLK GT1 on the cover). Struggling? Well, one of the models featured was a 'rustic' French resin handbuilt of an unfamiliar '1969 Austin-Healey Sprite' that looked like a baby sports prototype. Shortly afterwards we received a letter from a John Phillips, the current custodian of the car, who related a bit more of its complex and fascinating history. And we were hooked.

Plans were made, postponed, dashed, remade (as they have been for most things over the past couple of years) until we finally met up at RAF Bentwaters in the summer. The Sprite was driven up there and delivered on a trailer by an impressively dedicated posse-mum support group from the Sutton & Cheam Motor Club in South London.

Much photography followed, and an exhilarating drive, but first the history. Warning: it is so convoluted you might need to take notes.

The car is actually a 1959 Sprite, and started life as a red Mk1 Shorrock supercharged 948cc Frogeye owned by the Donald Healey Motor Company. It was the first works Sprite to compete at the Targa Florio (in 1959, with Bernard Cahier and Tommy Wisdom) and followed up that outing with a run on the Alpine Rally (Wisdom and Jack Hay) early the following year, which ended - quite literally - in a cliffhanger on the Vivione Pass. Footnote 1: there is believed to be another car in America that may also lay claim to the identity of that works car, having been issued with the same registration number when it was sent out to the US to run at Sebring.