Maxim Vintage Car Shopper: 1966 Austin-Healey 3000
A Miata is reliable, but no Mazda could ever match the charm and grace of this British brute.
The Year: 1966
The Model: Austin Healey 3000
The Drivetrain: A 2.9-liter straight six making 150 blue-blooded horses, routed through a five speed manual transmission. [This car is roadster-spec.]
Favourite Five Points
– Buying an Austin-Healey is signing up for a interactive relationship: there are eleven grease points that need attention every 1000 miles, first gear is unsynchronized, and the twin carburetors need tuning.
– Many people thing of chrome as a strictly American ornament, but the fine-toothed grill on this Big Healey is a shiny masterpiece.
– The sound. While not as famous as the songs of Anglo contemporaries like the Jaguar XKE and Aston Martin DB5, to our ears, the Healey six-cylinder takes the British Crown.
– The Stow-and-Go Top. Austin-Healey was one of the first brands to design its tops to be stowable by the driver from his seat.
– The shape. By 1966, this was a near 15 year-old design, giving it the small footprint and classic rear deck of fifties roadster but the amped-up power of British musclecar.
Quirks:
– A lack of power steering (with that heavy engine!) and roll-up windows test our patience with sixties technology—this is not a daily driver.
– The swapped-in Motolita steering wheel is nice, but we’d prefer the original.
– We’re torn on the subject of ground-up restorations. On one hand, this car is essentially as it would have come from the factory, a perfectionist’s dream. On the other hand, a car like this deserves the patina that comes with decades of use—we love our vintage cars to, well, show their vintage. History should be part of the package.
Good Buy:
This car is priced slightly below value, so we’re inclined to say: great buy! But then again, that cherished patina rears its tarnished head: for a $30k discount, we might track down an unrestored car with a few well-earned blemishes and love it all the more.
Photos by Hemmings
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