1956 Austin Healey 100 100/4 BN2

1956 Austin Healey 100 Description

I have been the caretaker of this 1956 Healey since 1999 and it has been a wonderful car. My life is heading in another direction and time for it to find its next caretaker. I know the cars history dating to 1962 when the prior owner purchased it. He lived in San Diego at the then and also spent time in St. Louis. He had driven the car as a daily driver for that entire time period and completed at least three trips from San Diego to St. Louis with the car. On one of the trips the head gasket blew while going through Albuquerque NM and stopped at the shop of Bobby and Donny Allison to repair it. While living in St. Louis during the blizzard of 1977 he parked the car in favor of a modern car. The vehicle sat until I purchased it in 1999. Having not run in in 22 years it needed a fair amount of work to the brakes and electrical system to get it running again. Once accomplished it was a reliable car for what it is. Made a few round trips from Cleveland to Columbus without issue.
In 2013 I undertook a frame off restoration where the condition was documented and rust repair completed. The sills, floors, rockers were replaced. The outriggers and rear crossmember were repaired. There was little body rust to repair. The paint is single stage acrylic enamel and there is a definite feel of the paint between the two colors, as it should be. The interior is correct leather and carvel carpet from Heritage in Vancouver. The Heritage Certificate that goes with the car documents that it was originally white over black. The unique thing on this car is that it originally had a black engine compartment and boot. This is documented by photos from the paint stripping process showing that there is no evidence of any white paint in those areas. It is well known that the factory experimented with painting the engine compartments of white cars black near the end of the 100 production run. Body number here is 14099 so it is very near the end.
The engine and transmission behave fine so they were not rebuilt when the car was apart. Cold oil pressure is around 60 and drops to about 40 when hot. Chrome wire wheels are new Dunlops. Also included is a complete tool kit.
If I were to guess at councours level I would put this at mid to high silver range. If someone would wish to have a concours gold 100 this would be a great place to start. To get there the fasteners would need to be gone through to eliminate modern American head styles, Revert to two six volt batteries and source a jack. After that I would be fairly confident that a gold standard could be achieved.
Mileage stated is not accurate as true mileage is unknown. I have put about 650 miles on it since restoration.