The Healey Silverstone is an open, two-seat sports car produced by the Donald Healey Motor Company beginning in 1949. It is named for the Silverstone Circuit racetrack, where it appeared on its second competition outing. The car has a narrow roadster style body and cycle wings. Designed as a dual purpose car for both road and track, the Silverstone became popular in club racing.
History
Donald Healey was a British aircraft and automobile engineer who became a rally driver, piloting a variety of marques starting with a Buick in 1921 and proceeding through Triumph and Invicta, to Riley Motor in 1933. In 1934 he became Technical Director for the Triumph Motor Company, responsible for the design of all Triumph cars until 1939, when the company was liquidated. During the early part of World War II (WWII) Healey remained at the Triumph factory designing aero engine carburettors. He later moved to Humber Limited, where he worked on their military vehicles. During the war years Healey began planning a high performance car, envisioned as a revival of the Triumph, for the post-war market.
His conception of this future car was influenced by discussions with two people he met at Humber. Benjamin Bowden was an engineer and artist who specialised in body design. Bowden spent time at Farina, and did designs such as the 1949 Veritas Scorpion, but may be best known as the designer of the Spacelander bicycle. A.C. Sampietro, known as 'Sammy', was an engineer who had worked for Alfa Romeo and Maserati in his native Italy and then with Thomson & Taylor and Talbot before applying his skills as a chassis designer to Healey's project. Sampietro went on to design a new cylinder head for the Nash inline six engine, and later emigrated to the United States, where he was hired by Willys, and for whom he designed the single overhead camshaft six cylinder Jeep Tornado engine. After the war, while still working at Humber, Healey, Bowden and Sampietro began planning to put their new sports car into production. They formed the Donald Healey Motor Company in February 1946 in Warwick, England. The original principals were later joined by James Watt, with whom Healey had worked at Triumph, and later still by Healey's son Geoff.
Sampietro designed the chassis that became the basis for the company's subsequent cars, collectively called the Warwick Healeys. The company's earlier cars used a curvaceous design by Bowden, with open top cars' bodywork made by Westland, and saloon models' by Elliot. These were followed by a somewhat awkward looking model called the Sportmobile built on a revised B-Type chassis.
In 1948 the British government doubled the purchase tax rate on automobiles costing over £1000 (£ in pounds), raising it from 33.33% to 66.66%. Healey realised this created a market for a modestly priced high performance car. The result was the Healey Silverstone, which was initially priced at £975.
The Silverstone was not the first car to target this market. In 1947 a sportscar, built on a Healey chassis and with the same powertrain, was launched by coachbuilder Duncan Industries. Called the Healey Duncan Drone, and nicknamed the Spiv, this car had an extremely simple roadster body with minimal equipment. The Drone sold for under £1000, and the buyer could drive it as delivered, or have the chassis rebodied after purchase in a more elaborate style.
Healey themselves had earlier built a similar car. This project was headed by Geoff Healey and resulted in the prototype Healey X 1, nicknamed the Red Bug and later called the Dryden Special. Built on a Healey chassis, X 1 was a narrow roadster with cycle wings. Power came originally from a 2.4 L Riley four cylinder engine, but the displacement was said to have been reduced to 2.0 L at some point. Some reports also mention the car as having a Ford flathead V8 engine for a time. The Silverstone drew inspiration from the Red Bug.
The car that served as the official Silverstone prototype was designated X 2, registered as JAC 100. It is at times incorrectly described as later receiving the designation "D 1" as the first production Silverstone.
Victor Leverett of Triumph suggested to Healey that he use the Riley engine in his new car. Healey had a long history with Riley going back to 1924. He had owned Rileys, prepped cars for their racing team, and become a friend of Victor Riley. Other parts of the Silverstone's powertrain are also sourced from Riley Motor's cars. Miles Thomas at Nuffield agreed to supply the parts to Healey.
The Healey Silverstone became so popular that several instances of other Warwick Healey cars were rebodied as Silverstone conversions.