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Originally Posted by stateofidleness
i will have one some day... a hardtop... beautiful car.
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A factory hardtop was offered, though rare as Hens' Teeth. A coupe was never offered.
And, it's a Sprite, commonly known in the US as a Bug Eye, not a Frogeye - that's it's UK monniker.
And, it's not technically even an Austin-Healey, it was produced by BMC (British Motor Corporation). It was designed and licensed to BMC by the Donald Healey Motor Corporation. It was produced at the MG plant in Abingdon, Berkshire.
The MkI Sprite is a great car with an Austin 'A' 9CC series 4 banger w/ 948 cc displacement and twin SU sidedraught carburettors producing 43HP and 52 lbf·ft of torque. Larger cams and competition SU's raised the power to 63HP and the addition of a Judson Supercharger brought power to 89HP. All this on a car weighing just under 1000 lbs.
A second gen Sprite was offered, it was so close a cousin to the MG Midget (they were 90% identical and even run on the same assembly line simultaneously) that both cars came to be referred to as 'Spridgets'.
There are still plenty of MkI Sprites out there with project cars going for as little as $1000, while fully restored models go in the $10k-$12k range.
Cheers!
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