So, I got on the horn with these guys and ordered me up some new front and rear hoses (plus new wheel cylinders). Because Project House Hell has been so all-consuming in recent months, PCH Car Numero Uno has been sitting untouched for quite a while, silently lowering property values. Meanwhile, the Civic is due for a new timing belt and I need to figure out what's causing that "Lean Condition Bank 1" error code in the Crown Vic.

It starts and moves under its own power, so all it needs to get on the street is the brakes and a few dozen nickel-dime fixes. And hey, it turns out it's not really a '67 after all! Actually, it's sort of a FrankenSprite, patched together from the corpses of at least three other cars; I discovered that the brake plumbing in the chassis comes from an early-to-mid-60s car, and I'd been wondering how a '67 managed to get a single-reservoir master cylinder in a year that the meddling federal government mandated the Communist-inspired dual system. Stay tuned for news of the PCH 20R Sprite's first drive… one of these weeks.

You need a machine that looks sharp while navigating those twisty mountain roads, right? OK, so this car might not be so great in the snow, but you need to be willing to compromise on function every now and then. I spotted this car parked in a hip South Denver neighborhood last year, and it may have played a role in my decision to get my own, somewhat less shiny Austin-Healey.

Not only was the A- which was such a frugal engine that it needed but three main bearings instead of the five that squander-prone fools prefer for their four-bangers- built from 1954 through 2000 and installed in millions of Minis, Midgets, Minors and the like, it served as the basis for many of Nissan's engines of the 1950s and 1960s. Available in displacements from 803cc all the way up to 1,275cc, the A put postwar Britain- which was still under food rationing well into the 1950s- on wheels and kept it there into the new millenium, winning plenty of racing glory along the way.
[Wikipedia]

When I started the rewiring project, my plan was to remove every single component that ever transported electrons for the POD. However, I got lazy when it came to the taillights and front turn signal lights. Here's the "before" shot of the taillight wiring (cue spooky haunted-house music).

And here's the "after" shot. You can see how I totally, utterly failed here; rather than gut the light assemblies and transplant nice reliable sockets and wiring from a junkyard-donor Infiniti (my car of choice for light-bulb-related hardware), I kept the Lucas sockets and spliced my harness into the few inches of Lucas wire heading into them. Note the cut wire in this image; that's from the early stages of my "why ain't this working?" testing.

But that wasn't the real bonehead move. Oh no, that was the way I totally spaced on testing the lights for continuity and/or inadvertent grounding. Sure enough, when I had the wiring all done and started flipping switches, I popped a fuse every time I activated the brake lights, right turn, or taillights. Turns out that one brake light socket, one taillight socket, the license plate light socket, plus front and rear right turn signal sockets were dead shorts. That's five out of nine possible for the Prince Of Darkness!

Now, it's not entirely fair to single out British cars for electrical problems, because Detroit really doesn't get the recognition it deserves for maddening electrical problems, but Lucas Electrics got their fame for the combination of unreliability and symptom-masking undiagnosability. I should know better, too, because- in addition to having had MGs as daily drivers- I used some Lucas components in the Turbo II, Junkyard Boogaloo Boombox and had all of them fail. I thought it would be fun to use some Jaguar marker lights, both of which required total rebuilds in order to get juice to the bulbs, and the Lucas switch I tried to use? Ha ha ha! Smell the melting plastic! So, now I'll be completely excorcising the sulfur-scented works of the Prince from my project before I proceed.

Cutting to the chase, the Sprite starts and runs now, so now I've just got to do some major minor to-do list items such as rebuilding the entire braking system, mounting those Miata seats I grabbed cheap, cooling and exhaust system assembly, and so on. Since the hardest part of any Hell Project (the registration paperwork) is taken care of, should be utter torture smooth sailing from this point forward! Continue with this sequential gallery thingy to hear my tale of Wiring Hell:

The reason I got the car so cheap in the first place- other than the fact that it's a beat-to-crap basket case with a ridiculously oversized engine installation- was that the original wiring was completely hosed. Hosed so badly, in fact, that even the brownout-inducing spirit of Joe Lucas, Prince Of Darkness felt uncomfortable hovering around the car. What little unburnt Lucas wiring was left in the car took a one-way trip straight to the garbage can… or into a decoy wiring harness in the thief-proof Toyota truck stereo project.

Best to start over from scratch, in this case. Fortunately, I've done a fair amount of car wiring over the years, not to mention building several instrument panels from scratch. Doing all the electricals in the Black Metal V8olvo made this project seem less daunting than it might have otherwise.

I've learned from extremely painful experience that it's a lot easier to wire a car if you sketch out some sort of diagram. It also makes it much easier when you have to repair or modify your wiring later on, because it's impossible to remember the super-redneck workarounds you rigged up after a few months go by.

The guy who engineered the engine swap also rigged up a nice powerful Delco internally-regulated three-wire alternator, so no maddening Toyota charging system mysteries to unravel here. Just put a charge light in the dash and it should work fine.

Using split loom and a bunch of leftover Painless Wiring harness wire from Black Metal V8olvo crew chief Hellhammer's shop, I wired up the car. Even in a no-frills machine like the Sprite, there's always more stuff to wire than one might expect. Gauges and idiot lights, turn signals, horn, et cetera- all of it requires wiring going through the firewall. Sadly, John Law mandates stuff like horns and headlights, and one look at the car tells me that I'll be having frequent conversations with members of the law enforcement community as soon as I take this thing on public roads. And they call this a free country!

99 million stripped wires later, I had the somewhat-modified factory instrument panel rigged up with all the stuff I needed

Also learned from painful car wiring experience was the reality that I will have to completely remove the instrument panel at some point. For this reason, all wires go through pairs of harness connectors, in this case scavenged from race-car parts Volvos. Tip: it's pretty easy to pop out the connector pins and concentrate all the ones hooked to heavy-gauge wires into the connectors you plan to use.

Tachometer, gas gauge, wiper switch, engine cooling fan switch, ignition switch, ignition lock, horn button, starter button, headlight switches (separate for low and high beams, because I couldn't find the right kind of switch in my stash), turn signal switch (I don't want to screw with crappy British Leyland steering column switches, so I put a 3-way switch on the dash), charge and oil pressure idiot lights, and turn signal indicator lights (a '63 Ford pickup hazard indicator light for left, Volvo 164 Fasten Seat Belt light for right).

Yeah, I love junkyard stuff and general beater-y wretchedness. The idea is to build this car on a 24 Hours Of LeMons budget, though I think it might be tough to find anyone willing to take this thing out on a race track with the likes of the Size Matters '67 Plymouth Fury. Here's a Pick-N-Pull battery mounted in the trunk, using the tried-and-true BMW E30 battery-cable hardware. I still haven't rigged any kind of battery tie-down or hydrogen venting system, but that's not so important in a car that has no brakes yet. Add it to the Hell Project to-do list!

The positive battery cable and the bundle of wires going back to the rear of the car (turn signals, taillights, brake lights, fuel pump, fuel gauge sender) come into the passenger compartment via these hardly-rusty-by-British-Leyland-standards channels. There's just barely room for the Miata seat to clear this stuff. In fact, there's just barely room for anything to clear anything else, given how tiny the Spridget is.

I picked up a 1970s Toyota truck speedometer to use- not wanting to deal with weird speedo cable adapters or fabrication, I figured it would be best to match the gauge to the Celica transmission I've got- but I decided not to use it in this dash. That's because it only goes to 85 MPH, which wouldn't be a big deal except for the 4.56:1 differential gear ratio and small-diameter tires; this speedo will be pegged before I'm even off surface streets! I'm going to pick up a later 120 MPH Celica unit and manually calibrate it (i.e., use the cop-grade speedometer in my Crown Victoria to clock it at various speeds, then print my own speedo faceplate label).

I figured that Italian gauges would add sportiness to my ride, and would you believe that this Alfa Romeo Spider Benzina gauge works perfectly with the Healey's fuel sender?

In fact, the only junkyard gauge that doesn't work right is the metric VDO temperature gauge I pulled from some sort of Audi. I have the right sender and it's wired correctly- I think- but it doesn't care. No problem, though, because rather than buy a new 2-1/16" gauge for, oh, $9.95, I've fabricated my own using a dead Volvo clock (obtained free from the V8olvo) with its innards replaced by a Celica temp gauge crudely busted out of a cluster unit at the junkyard and epoxied into place. It works fine using the Toyota gauge sender that came with the car, though I still need to rig up some kind of faceplate glass to protect the needle. You learn tricks like this trying to stay under that daunting $500 LeMons budget!

So now I can climb into the driver's seat (which isn't actually, like, bolted down or anything) and fire up that 20R, much to the delight of my long-suffering neighbors. The car came with a pretty decent exhaust system, but I removed it to get access to the fuel pump wiring and haven't gotten around to reinstalling it. Open headers rule! Note the illuminated switches, courtesy of the too-awesome-to-describe-here HSC Electronic Supply surplus store in ultra-geeky Milpitas.

One major problem is the points ignition system (Toyota didn't go to electronic ignitions in US-spec R engines until '78 or so). It works fine for now, but points suck. Period. Don't even try to defend points ignitions here, because even the most rabid fan of non-electronic ignitions has only one leg to stand on, debate-wise: protection against the EMP pulse of a nuclear explosion... and I figure I'll have bigger problems than an engine stall if a nuke goes off in my line of sight, anyway. Fortunately, I picked up a nice 20R electronic ignition system while I was junkyard shopping for Japanese fuse boxes.

A few bits of wiring remain; I have yet to hook up the headlights, horn, and engine cooling fan, since I've been bashing away at the front of the car in an attempt to get the extremely, uh, innovative cooling system that came with the car to function properly. This should be wrapped up pretty soon, and I should have the brakes together any year day now. Check in later for more 20R Sprite adventures!

This bunch of Rootes Group classics has roused the ire of the Communists in charge of zoning enforcement in Waukesha, and everything must go. Even Ed Gein himself would have a tough time resisting a '59 Singer Gazelle for just 300 bucks, and that's only the beginning! If Rootes machines aren't your obsession, you might consider the solid '72 Celica or the batch of cab-over-engine Detroit trucks from the 1930s and 1940s.
[Bring A Trailer]

You can usually find plenty of reasonably intact passenger-side seats at a wrecking yard, but I wanted a matching pair of buckets, narrow enough to fit the Sprite, with decent side support for the heavy G forces I'll be inducing with that oxcart highly sophisticated suspension, and in nice shape. Yes, that's pretty much impossible. But what's this? A 1991 Mazda Miata- a rare automatic-trans-equipped example- sitting among the Diamantes and Camrys in the import section of my local self-service junkyard… and the seats are just about perfect! They've even got the coveted headrest speakers, a real plus when you plan to install them in a rattly-ass British Leyland heap vintage sports car with a differential-shattering truck engine a spirited Japanese performance powerplant breathing through the cheapest glasspack I can find high-flow performance exhaust. Why didn't that driver's seat get snagged within 0.08 seconds of arrival on the yard?

Here's why: the car had been T-boned, hard, on the driver's side, and the driver's door was mashed into the seat and preventing it from sliding forward enough to provide access to the seat mounting bolts; the buckled floor wasn't helping matters, either. I could see the evidence of previous attempts at seat removal, but none had been successful. However, I always bring three secret weapons to the junkyard: a prybar and my steel-toed boots. After two hours of alternating expletive-picked door-prying sessions from the outside with even-more-expletive-packed door-kicking sessions from the inside, I succeeded in mutilating the door metal sufficiently to push the seat several inches forward- just enough so that I could just barely sneak a 14mm open-end wrench into the safety-glass-cube-packed space under the seat and get it onto the bolt head. Several square inches of shredded knuckle skin later, I had started both bolts turning (thank you, Japanese manufacturers and your insistence on high-quality fine-pitch fasteners). After that, it was just a matter of following these simple steps:

1. Spend several minutes positioning the wrench so that it feels as though it might be seated on the bolt head. Scream curses at the uncaring junkyard gods as another shard of glass goes under your fingernail.
2. Using all 1/16" of the available space, loosen the bolt approximately 3°. Curse yourself for deciding, several hours ago, that it wasn't worth the trip home to fetch a sledgehammer to bash that goddamn door completely out of the way and make this a three-minute job.
3. Repeat Step 1 and Step 2 until Bolt 1 is removed. Start over with Bolt 2.

Eventually, I prevailed. The seats were mine! They fit very nicely in the Sprite, and the tracks should be easy to mount. Now if I can just finish building the entire wiring harness from scratch...

And that Escort is just one of many great British race cars that VR photographed at last summer's B.C. Historics. Lotus, Sunbeam, Austin-Healey, and MG are all represented, and we get a couple of race Volvos as an added bonus! I've been falling behind on my duty to share VR's great racing photographs, so expect more of this sort of thing in the near future.

It's time to head on out to my local self-service junkyard for its monthly Half Price Sale. That's right, everything is 50% off! There won't be a single Prince Of Darkness component left in the electrical system when I'm done, so it goes without saying that I'm keeping Lucas fuseboxes as far as possible from my Sprite. What this car needs is the fusebox from the most reliable vehicle ever made: an 80s Toyota truck.


It's hard to find such trucks in your typical self-service yard, and those that do show up get stripped down to unidentifiable shells withing minutes of hitting the yard. These days, though, the economy is so rough that even Toyota trucks are showing up in the auto graveyards; I found three of them yesterday. This '80 yielded just the right compact-size fusebox for my needs.


Also on my shopping list was an electronic 20R distributor, because my Sprite's engine came with a points distributor, no doubt installed in order to give the car resistance to EMP overloads in the event of nuclear war. I figure I'll have bigger problems than a dead car if the MIRVs start dropping, and I vowed many years ago that I'd never adjust points again; got to be electronic. The 20R in the fusebox-donor car had already given up its distributor, but this Corona's engine was still intact.


I grabbed the igniter module while I was there; I'll use it with the coil I've already got in the car.


Now that I know the E30 BMW 325 is such a good source for cheap rear-battery setup, I figured I might as well put the battery in the Sprite's trunk. Here's a likely candidate!


Sure enough, the battery cable was intact and ready for easy removal. I'll have about 6 feet left over for other projects, once I've relocated the Austin-Healey's battery. I grabbed the negative cable while I was there, since I don't want to use the one Joe Lucas put under the Sprite's bonnet.


Total price (less core charges): well under 40 bucks. Not a bad haul!

Now that the rain has finally stopped, I can get down to making the Sprite roadworthy; such is Project Car Hell when you don't have a garage. One of the showstoppers- in addition to the lack of brake function and any semblance of a wiring harness- has been the terrible steering wheel that came with the car. Any torque on the wheel makes the spokes pull out of the tape, and I don't trust JB Weld to repair it properly. While I'm sure an Austin-Healey fanatic would fire the wheel straight to a wizened old steering-wheel restorer back in England, I'd rather eat a bushel of Circus Peanuts than spend £400 on the correct wheel. Supposedly you can get Mountney hub adapters to get an aftermarket wheel on a Sprite, but that's still going to set me back close to 100 clams, or bones, or whatever you call them. No, my steering wheel budget is more like 15 bucks!


There's no way in hell that any wheel out of Detroit is going to fit my car, and the all-metric German and Japanese wheels weren't going to bolt on either. Got to be British! Casadelshawn of the Faster Farms Belvedere spotted a chrome-bumper Midget (identical to the Sprite) in a junkyard in Sacramento while I was off covering the Gator-O-Rama, but the little MG had been picked clean by the time I got back to Alameda and could make the 90-mile trek to the state capitol. Let's see, what's the only British Leyland product that's plentiful in the cheap self-service junkyards around here? That's right: the Jaguar XJ! My first target was this Series 1 XJ-6's wheel. Sadly, the splined steering shaft on this car was bigger than the one on the Sprite.


But what's this a few cars down in the same yard? Why, it's a 1974 XJ12, which (according to some very headache-inducing online research) used a different wheel than its downscale six-banger sibling. Sure enough, the V12 Jag steering wheel is a direct replacement for the little Sprite's, right down to the rim diameter! The horn button doesn't quite work- a bit of corrosion in the contacts, which didn't really come as a surprise- but I'll sort that out later. Next step: a wiring harness that allows me to fire up the engine without twisting wires together!

Yes, the car that inspired me to start doing the Project Car Hell series, PCH numero uno, the engine-swapped Sprite that took on the Fiat 850 back in July '07; after posting it, I decided I had to have it. I called the guy up, but it had already been sold. Damn! That'll teach me to post on a car without being 100% certain I didn't want it for myself, I thought at the time… and kept my eyes open for another like it. Then, Oskimba sent me a tip on this Craigslist ad (go here if the ad disappears). It's the same car! Long story short, I bought it, along with many extra parts… and cheaply enough that I can sell some of the extra parts to get the cost into 24 Hours Of LeMons territory if I so choose. For now, I'll be pretty busy making a new wiring harness from scratch (after wiring the totally gutted Black Metal V8olvo I know what I'm in for here), and then I'll need to get the brakes working, and so on. It was being driven on the street as recently as 6 months ago, and it can be started and moved around now, so this project could be more hellish. Long-term, I'm thinking of building up a hairy 22R for it and installing a sturdier rear end… but first things first. Here's the first batch of photos, shot last night after the tow truck dropped it off in my back yard:



By the way, the guy who sold me the Sprite has quite a collection of Jalop-worthy machinery, so many that he can be forgiven for not finishing this project. How about an original 500-mile '61 Volvo Amazon wagon? Or a vintage-racer 1912 Model T? Perhaps a genuine crashed-in-the-original-series Dukes Of Hazzard '69 Charger, parked next to a cherry Stage 1 Buick GS, parked next to an IHC Scout? Yes, all those and much more, and I'll be posting some photos in the near future.

First, we should all thank Scroggzilla for unearthing these videos of a vintage Castrol documentary for us (and Targa-Florio.net for providing the photograph above). The Targa Florio was an endurance race held in the mountains of Sicily; starting in 1906, it was finally discontinued in 1977 for safety reasons. Yes, even by the insanely loose (and relatively lawsuit-free) standards of European road racing, the Targa Florio was considered too dangerous to continue. We've got the whole lineup of worship-deserving machinery here, including MGs, Austin-Healeys, Alfas, Porsches, and- of course- Ferraris.

You can find intra-corporate engine swaps all over the place, but even a 350-powered Chevy Vega or a 4A-GZE-motivated Toyota Starlet is a bit of a snore after you've seen a few. The real engine-swap fun starts happening when you do a mashup involving totally unrelated drivetrain and chassis; that way you get maddening challenging technical hassles and enraged purists thirsting for your heretical blood. It's a lose-lose win-win!

Sure, you can get all manner of potent Nissan powerplants for a 510, but what if you want completely absurd engine revs and all the engine weight behind the front wheels? You could spend crazy downtown money on a wild SR, and then chop a hole in the firewall and move it back… but why not just take a tip from Herr Doktor Wankel and eschew reciprocating mass? That's what the seller of this 1971 Datsun 510 with 1988 RX-7 Turbo engine (go here if the ad disappears) has done, and all you need to do is wrap up damn near everything a few loose ends to get it fully streetworthy! It's got a Frankensteined custom oil pan, some suspension mods, wheel flares, etc. It starts and drives, doesn't have much rust, and the interior is totally stripped ready for restoration. That engine put out 182 horses from the factory, and you'll be able to blow it up get much, much more with the usual turbo tweaks.

182 horsepower in a 2,000-pound car? Why, you might as well be driving a garbage truck powered by a 50cc Honda Cub motor! You need to get the power-to-weight down from 11 pounds per horse to something more stupid sensible, like 500 horsepower in a 1,000-pound car! You get to two pounds per horsepower and you'll have plenty of hill-climbing and passing power, because it's all about the safety! We all know that the cheapest route to 500 horsepower is the good ol' Small-Block Chevrolet V8; you can put together 500 reliable Chevy horses using off-the-shelf parts, no sweat… but what car best suits such an engine? We suggest this 1965 Austin-Healey Sprite (go here if the ad disappears), which is already set up for a small-block Chevy engine. By "set up," we're not sure if that means "Austin engine torn out, space now available for Chevy" or "engine mounts in place, firewall modified," but you'll learn more as you try to negotiate the price down from the $3,000 starting point. It has a "professionally built" chassis and wheel tubs- hey, you need steamroller rubber to propel you into the nearest concrete abutment get all those horses to the pavement- but the planned 4-link rear suspension, she is not finished yet. Does it come with the body and trim parts not shown in the photo? Is there rust? We can't say! Don't worry about that stuff, though, because we can think of plenty of cars with tougher parts availability than the Sprite. Thanks to Radiohound for the tip!

With UDMan's '63 Corvair raising the Index Of Effluency stakes for next year's New England 24 Hours Of LeMons, anyone who shows up with the same ol' snoozeworthy RX-7 or Camaro will be the object of well-deserved ridicule by his or her peers. You need to limp roar onto the track in a car manufactured by one of the Big Three PCH Superpowers, and we've managed to find one that already has a roll cage! In fact, this '68 Austin Healey Sprite is a proven racing champion, having taken the SCCA Grand National Solo II Class DP trophy in 1978! Since that time, well, there's been near-total a certain amount of deterioration, but who the heck cares about non-structural rust damage in a race car? Of course, there is certainly might be some structural damage as well, but you'll get to fixing that… right after you figure out how to get a new engine installed with the $1 in budget flexibility you'll have after spending $499 on this car. There must be something you can sell off this hulk racer; if nothing else, you can sell off the transmission and use the $75 to buy a basket-case donor car with some sort of functioning engine/trans combo. Thanks to Evil Genius for the tip!

Since the rollcage doesn't count against the $500 LeMons price ceiling, why pay for a car that already has one? Instead, go for a mid-engined Italian machine, and we don't mean some cheapo Fiat X1/9 here. You can kick it up a notch and send your opponents staggering back with a mixture of pity fear and confusion dread when you drag drive this 1976 Lancia Scorpion off the trailer before the race. It's got some accident damage, but so what? You're not racing to look pretty, you're racing to spend an entire weekend turning wrenches and cursing in Italian win! Does it run? Is the Pope Italian? Hey, that Fiat Twin Cam engine is just months minutes away from firing up, you'll see!

Thing is, having an obscure and/or oddball car is great... but impossible-to-find parts and undiagnosable mechanical woes give you a one-way ticket to Crazy Town. So that brings up today's Choose Your Eternity poll: We have two cars on Craigslist that we're pretty sure most Jalopzoids would consider cool, each can be had for $1000 or less, and each would be total freakin' nightmares to repair and maintain on a reasonable budget. The question is, which one would drive you crazier?

First off, we have this 1971 Fiat 500, available for the reet price of only $800! Yes, you'll have the Sophia Loren lookalikes kidney-punching each other as they vie for a ride in your dashing little Italian machine... provided you could actually make it work! Oh yeah, you'll have to fabricate a few things...
But what if you're the smooth-talking British-sports-car type with a preference for Japanese power? This 20R-powered '67 Austin-Healey Sprite can be yours for the low, low price of $1000! Was the engine swap done right? How about the electrical system? Hey, finding out is part of the fun!

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Among the myriad plans to revive British sports car marques, the Austin Healey saga has been at the forefront. And considering two posts in the past two years equals the forefront, expectations are down at croc level. And while that's likely for the best, there's this: Trademark owners Nanjing Auto have signed on with Healey Automobile Consultants Ltd and HFI Automotive Ltd to develop new cars badged as Healey and Austin-Healey. Last year, HFI released the teaser above to attract interest in its cause, and reportedly started taking deposits. The interest likely filtered to the top of Nanjing, which is looking to leverage its MG-Rover assets to expand its fledgling British empire. Maybe more lads from Longbridge will be picking up their mothballed lunch pails sooner than we'd thought. – Mike Spinelli

Nanjing Auto Announces Deal To Revive Austin Healey & Healey Brands [Carscoop]

Related:
Healey Marque Even Closer to Rebirth; New Day Rising for Austin-Healey? [internal]

The Anglo-American consortium that owns Healey Automobile Consultants Ltd. announced it's moving forward with new models inspired by the Healey 3000, in convertible and coupe versions. The company, HFI released a sketch and a partial image of the coupe, which shows a badge reminicent of the original Austin-Healey logo. The company will badge the cars as Healey, not Austin-Healey, which is a separate legal trademark owned by the Healey group and Nanjing Auto, the new owner of MG Rover. The company said it's taking deposits on the cars, of which 203 are scheduled to be built. At some point.

Healey Name Rises Again [Autocar]

Related:
Healey Hullabaloo Simmers, Will it Boil? [internal]

HFI, an Anglo-American consortium, has purchased Healey Automotive Consultants from the family of Donald Healey, and they've apparently got one roadworthy prototype done and another in the hopper. But here's where the plot thickens Austin Healey fans may remember that a group called GB Sports was in negotiations with Nanjing, who bought the withered husk of MG last year. The wicket gets stickier after the jump.

No Austin Healey can be built without the consent of Nanjing and the holder of the Healey name, which is now HFI. Although HFI managing director Tim Fenna won't comment on dealings with GB, we doubt that the group bought out Healey just to bring back the Nash Healey. Can we safely call GB dead in the water? The probability is high.

Healey ready to make its marque again [Telegraph, UK]

Related:
New Day Rising for Austin Healey? [Internal]

Reader Neil put down his bag of lentils long enough to write in and let us know that Brit mag Autocar's running a bit on the controversy over the resurrection of Austin-Healey. Since Neil ain't got nothin' but long hair, soup and Vyvyan for a roommate, and we got no Autocar scrip either, we're left with the wonder of the Googles, which found us this: a group called GB Sports (not the Krish Bhaskar-headed, Monaco-based concern that we reported on earlier) is dealing with Nanjing Auto holders of the Rover bag to build Austin-Healeys at the Longbridge plant in Birmingham. Somehow, we've got a feeling this one's gonna flop big-time.

High hopes for Austin-Healey Revival [Guardian, UK]

Related:
Project Tempest: A New Austin-Healey? [Internal]

If one failed bidder for MG Rover has his way, we could see a revival of the famed Austin Healey sports car, along with several other lost marques of old. Monaco-based Krish Bhaskar, an industry analyst turned investor, is embarking on what he calls Project Tempest, the centerpiece of which is a concept sports car (pictured) based on the the Austin Healey 3000 from the 1960s. Bhaskar doesn't yet have ownership of the brand, but assumedly by publicizing his intentions will try to persuade the estate of Donald Healey to offer it for licensing. According to Top Gear, the "Tempest" would be limited to 155mph, but go from zero to 100 mph in under 12 seconds, likely rivaling the BMW Z4 and its ilk in the $45,000 (UK) range. Edmunds reports Bhaskar's plan could involve taking over Peugeot's Ryton plant in Coventry, England, if PSA closes it in 2008, where he would build new versions of other lost British cars. Triumph Mayflower, anyone?

New 'Austin Healey' on the cards [Top Gear]

Related:
Bringing Sportscars Across the Pond: A Marcos for the US? [internal]