Austin Healey History

Austin Healey History

Healey Journal

Cars Pages:
Austin Healey Pages:

This History section describes what I've been able to learn of the car's past. At this stage its history is all but unknown.

I have acquired a copy of the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust issued "Heritage Certificate" for the car, and have obtained quite a lot of information from it. A scanned image of the Certificate is shown and a summary of the data provided. I got this BEFORE finalizing the purchase, to help with establishing the car's bona fides for importation, other purchasers of cars in better condition might find such information useful for ascertaining the originality of a car.

What I know of the car's most recent owners is also outlined, and I hope in the not too distant future to obtain further information from them.

Copies of a heritage certificate may be obtained (for a fee) from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust (click for link). There are also a number of registries for Healeys. The one for BJ8s like mine is run by Mr. Steven Byers (click for e-mail link), who has been most helpful to me.

Heritage Certificate

October, 1967

Manufactured from 28/9/1967 through 3/10/1967 and shipped to Boston, Massachusetts on 9/10/1967.

The numbers for the engine, body, etc. may be checked for originality, they have been deleted from the graphic for security. The information about the car's original color scheme and options would be useful if I intended to restore the car to its just-from-the-factory condition.

Original Exterior Color: Ivory White (AKA Old English White)

Original Interior Color & Material: Red Ambla (Vinyl)

Equipment:

Wire Wheels & Octagonal knock-offs

Heater

Overdrive

Tonneau Cover

Subsequent history unknown until....

Year

2001	Owner:	Daniel Rapley
	Location:	Bethel, Connecticut
	Information:	Private trader that buys and sells project cars via e-bay.

1981-	Owner:	Dwight Patten
	Location:	Massachusetts
	Information:	From an e-mail: "The chassis you bought from Dan came from a car I bought in Brighton MA. in 1981. I owned the car and did a partial restoration in the early 1980's. I drove it for years until I bought another blue one for parts. I decided to restore the blue one with the engine from the white one. Good luck with your project."

? - 1981	Owner:	John Robinson
	Location:	Massachusetts
	Information

?	Owner:
	Location:
	Information

Color Distribution Statistics (Information due to Mr. Steve Byres, BJ8 Registry from a posting he sent to the Austin Healey mail list)

Out of 6130 BJ8s now included in the registry (34.6& of total production), I have documentation (either copies of BMIHT certificates, or the data is copied directly from the BMIHT archves) for the original colors of 1,785 cars (10% of total BJ8 production).

The distribution is as follows, in order of decreasing numbers. Percentages are relative to 1,785:

BRG: 518 (29%)
Healey Blue: 421 (23.5%)
Colorado Red: 298 (16.7%)
Ivory White: 271 (15%)
Black: 111 (6%)
Metallic Golden Beige: 92 (5%, but we know there were a total of 553 of these, or 3% of total BJ8 production)
Healey Blue/White: 30 (1%)
Ivory White/Black: 13 (0.7%)
Black/Colorado Red: 10 (0.5%)
Colorado Red/Black: 10 (0.5%)
Ivory White/Red: 7 (0.3%)
BRG/Ivory White: 1 (this is not a color combination listed as available by Clausager, however there was at least one per BMIHT records. It was a home market (RHD) car, unfortunately written off in South Africa in 1970.
Colorado Red/White: 1
Florida Green: 1
Silver Grey: 1 (special order, and only one existed)

Having a large number of BMIHT certificates collected together allows for some interesting comparisons, observations, nd statistics. For example, paging through the 500 or so that I have from the earlier cars toward the later shows that in the beginning, Ivory White and Black were dominating colors, whereas toward the middle Healey Blue takes over, and for later production BRG begins to dominate. Almost all of the last 50 cars produced were BRG. I suppose this gives some indication of what the factory thought was a good seller as production progressed.

To improve the accuracy of the statistics, the more actual data we have, the better. I [Mr. Steve Byers] would very much like to have as many as possible of the BMIHT certificates collected. Anyone who knows they have not provided a copy for their BJ8 and would like to contribute to our knowledge of Healeys is invited to send me a copy- scanned, faxed or regular mail. SEND TO:Mr. Steven Byers .

e-mail me