Sebring 12-hour 1963

In September 1962, BMC decided full support would be given Donald Healey’s racing activities at Sebring in March 1963. It was agreed that three Austin Healey 3000s [two to race, one a spare test car] would be prepared for shipping to Sebring by the third week of February 1963. The power units would develop 190 bhp using nitride-treated crankshafts and alloy pistons. 

In  October 1962, three BJ7 3000 Mark II Austin Healeys were taken from the Austin assembly line at Abingdon and delivered to the Competition Department of Donald Healey Motor Company in Warwick. These cars would form the 1963 Sebring 12-Hour Austin Healey works team. With Westlake cylinder heads, 4-speed competition transmissions and dual-circuit disc brakes the cars, not homologated, were entered as prototypes in Class P.3.

57 FAC

This car, originally numbered H-BJ7/21523 left Abingdon in RHD spec. arrived at DHMC less engine, gearbox, wheels, tyres, rear axle, brakes, shock absorbers, instruments, heater, seats and hood. All steel body panels were changed to aluminium, perspex windows replaced glass. Oil cooler vents were added beneath a mesh grille, bumpers were discarded, racing bucket seats were added and interior trim stripped to save weight. Centre-lock Borrani wire wheels shod with 6:00 x 15 Dunlop Racing tyres and an ice blue paint job with white hardtop completed the picture.

The team

Issued with a Healey chassis number: H-BJ7-63H73-10 and fitted with an experimental racing engine: XSP-1973-3, the car was registered with a Warwickshire number, 57 FAC in January 1963. 

The two other cars, 54 FAC [Bucknum/Olthoff] and 56 FAC [Hopkirk/Morley] respectively, ran the 12-hour race finishing 12th and 26th overall. 

57FAC ran as the team practice car to allow for testing of various set-up options.

Two additional 3000s were similarly entered in 1964 [767-KNX] and 1965 [DAC 953C], making for a total of just five Donald Healey-prepared Sebring 3000 blue/white lightweight racers. All survive, one in UK, one in Holland, one in USA and two in Australia.  

57 FAC in Canada

At the conclusion of the 1963 Sebring race, 57 FAC was sold to BMC Canada for a reputed $1,000. Driven by Don Kindree and Al Pease, 57 FAC raced successfully in Canada including winning the 4-hour Sundown Grand Prix at Mosport in torrential rain on 22 August 1964.  In 1965, Kindree and Pease placed 2nd with 57 FAC – again at Mosport - in the 6-hour Sundown GP endurance race.

Dennis Prophet, a BMC mechanic who had fettled 57FAC at Sebring and later migrated to Canada where he looked after, and later owned the car, confirmed in a 2016 interview that after oil sump issues damaged the cylinder block, the engine was replaced with a substitute ex-DHMC competition engine block : XSP 22551 which remains in the car to this day.

A new start

For 21 years - 1967 to 1988 – 57 FAC lay idle, an obsolete race car, until in 1988, Phillip Coombs from California purchased the car and commissioned a full restoration to return the car to its correct Sebring works specification. In 1989, 57 FAC was sold via Brooks auction at Olympia to Aston Martin chairman, Victor Gauntlett for a then-world record Austin Healey sale price of USD $349,627. 

Australia

The car came to Australia in 1991 and after three previous Australian owners, was acquired in 2016. It has had limited outings, including laps at the Australian GP on several occasions and now shows – believed genuine - only 33,500 miles. With triple side-draft Weber carburation, straight-cut gears and throaty exhaust headers, it is a rare, impressive and compelling car to drive.