Donald Healey, a successful rally driver and former technical director at Triumph, founded the Donald Healey Motor Company in 1945 and incorporated it in February 1946, taking over premises at The Cape in Warwick. His cars combined light, stiff chassis with Riley engines and aerodynamic bodies.
The Healey Elliott saloon of 1948 was claimed to be the fastest production closed car in the world, timed at 104.7mph over a mile, and the stark Healey Silverstone of 1949 was capable of about 107mph and won its class in Alpine rallies and the 1949 Mille Miglia. To reach American buyers Healey teamed up with Nash Motors from 1950, and the Nash-Healey, with a Nash Ambassador engine and later a Pininfarina body, finished third at Le Mans in 1952; about 506 were built.
Healey then designed a cheaper sports car using Austin mechanical parts, the Healey Hundred. Leonard Lord saw it at the 1952 Earls Court Motor Show and agreed to build it as the Austin-Healey 100, and from then on Healey’s name went on BMC cars. Donald Healey later became chairman of Jensen, which built the Jensen-Healey from 1972.
