Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite

rdf:langString Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite

rdf:langString The Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite is a small sports car that was produced by the Donald Healey Motor Company at its Cape Works in Warwick, the Healey's Speed Equipment Division in Grosvenor Street, London and subsequently by John Sprinzel Ltd from their well-known premises in Lancaster Mews. A modified version of the production Austin-Healey Sprite, it was recognized by the governing body of motorsport, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, as a separate model in its own right, featuring Girling disc brakes as well as specified engine and chassis improvements. After its homologation (motorsport) on 17 September 1960, FIA regulations permitted the use of 'special bodies' and a small number of Sebring Sprites were subsequently fitted with coupé bodywork in aluminium alloy and glassfibre, the most strikingly attractive examples being those devised by well-known race and rally driver John Sprinzel, who had won the 1959 RAC British Rally Championship. Sprinzel commissioned the coachbuilders Williams & Pritchard, renowned for their racing and prototype work, to produce the bodies. These are usually said to have numbered six, but eight are known to have been made. Further Sprites received similar alloy bodywork from Alec Goldie and Fred Faulkner of the firm Robert Peel Sheet Metal Works (more usually known as 'Peel Coachworks'). The name 'Sebring Sprite' would become a generic term for any Sprite with disc brakes, and later for any Sprite with coupé or fastback bodywork. (Please note the adjacent picture shows a modern replica Sprinzel Sebring Sprite, as produced by Brian Archer, but fitted with a replica of the Speedwell GT bonnet designed by Frank Costin)