Healing Words

There are a couple of Facebook Pages that I follow for their interesting motoring content.  I can recommend them both.

One is Silodrome.

The other is Hagerty UK. Other nationalities of Hagerty are available.

Both of them had Healey stories this week - although strictly speaking, the Silodrome one was a Healy story.  That spelling just looks wrong.  But then again, so does the car:

The Nissan Micra rear lights don't help but the Mini front lights make it look like a bloated Mini Convertible.

It probably looks quite good in the flesh though.

It is a kit car based on an MX5.  It is from Healy Designs reimagining a modern day Austin-Healey 3000.  I can see where they are coming from and I think they are making a fair fist of it.

The Healey name with an "e" allegedly belongs to a company called HFI Automotive and according to Wikipedia, without any citation, so it could be a load of tripe, in 2007 it was announced that Nanjing Automotive (NAC, who own the Austin name and are currently producing MGs) signed a collaborative agreement with them that aims to recreate the Austin Healey and Healey marques alongside NAC's MG.

The Hagerty story, on the other hand, harks back to how Ford could have but didn't invent the Hot Hatch.

With this car:

It was developed in the late '70s by Healey Automotive Consultants who were owned by the Healey family and went on to be sold to HFI Automotive who may well have signed a collaborative agreement with NAC in 2007 that aims to recreate the Austin Healey and Healey marques alongside NAC's MG.  It was actually Ford of America that was leading on this which is why it is a left-hand drive car and has American plates even though the letters and numbers point at a 1978 UK car.

According to MyCarCheck, that UK plate is now on a 2015 Ford Escort Sport - more tripe because there is no such thing.  I suspect that somebody has spotted the headlights on this exact car and re-registered it wrongly on it returning to the UK in 2015.

God I'm good.

I've just looked it up on the Government MOT-check Website.

Not only does it confirm that we ARE talking out this Healey Fiesta, it also picks up on the one thing that really annoyed me when I first saw the photos of this historic car.

Under "Repair Immediately" it states<

• Offside Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect (4.1.2 (c))