Donald Healey

Donald Mitchell Healey CBE (3 July 1898 – 13 January 1988)[1][2] was a noted English car designer, rally driver and speed record holder.

Barely 16 when WW1 started, he volunteered in 1916 (before the end of his apprenticeship[4]) for the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and earned his "wings" as a pilot.

[5] Triumph went into liquidation in 1939 but Healey remained on the premises as works manager for H M Hobson making aircraft engine carburettors for the Ministry of Supply.

[5] In 1945 he formed with Sampietro and Ben Bowden the Donald Healey Motor Company Ltd basing its business in an old RAF hangar at Warwick.

[3] Next was a high-performance sports car, the Silverstone which appeared in 1949 and was so successful it led to an agreement with an American company Nash Motors.

Team members Duncan Hamilton & Tony Rolt's car finished 4th overall after suffering serious mechanical damage when hit from behind by a brakeless Delage.

He finished 1st in class in over 2000cc open category and was presented with the Franco Mazzotti Trophy Coppia Del Mille Miglia.

[3] At that time Nash and Austin were working together on the project which became their Metropolitan Donald Healey formed a design consultancy in 1955, one of the results was the Austin-Healey Sprite which went into production in 1958.

[8] This was a long and fruitful relationship for Healey, in part because Jensen had been making body shells for Austin-Healey since the 1952 demise of the similar Austin A40 Sports.

[3] Ultimately, he settled on the all-aluminum 4-valve, twin overhead cam Lotus 907[10] He resisted offers from Saab and Ford to produce a new sports car.

His obituary in The Times reported that Healey was a small rotund man with a flashing smile and that he kept himself immensely fit, and had been, in his day, an expert water skier.