Healey good news? (UPDATED)

Newswheel staff :: 22 September 2005 :: Filed under Ausin Healey, Europe & UK, US

[Click on an image to view]

Not likely

This week, AutoExpress has the “exclusive” skinny on plans for an all-new Austin Healey. The British mag claims the GB Sports Car Company (UK partner of Nanjang Automobile, the Chinese company that bought the decaying corpse of MG Rover ) is planning to base the car on the chassis and running gear of the MG SV roadster (which in turn is a rejigged Qvale Mangusta). In a bizarre twist, power will supposedly come from VW’s W8 lump in 335bhp trim.

It’s a great story, except for one thing: the GB Sports Car Company recently poo-pooed such plans. To quote the Financial Times newspaper (on August 10th):

“Plans to revive the Austin-Healey sports car brand at Rover’s former factory in Birmingham have been dropped by the new management team brought in by Nanjing Automobile, buyer of the failed British carmaker’s assets.

Fraser Welford-Winton, managing director of GB Sports and former head of Rover’s engine arm, said the idea had been dropped in favour of concentrating on the MG badge during discussions with Nanjing.”

We’ll go with the FT on this one.

UPDATE:
In a rather odd twist, it turns out the picture published in Autoexpress was actually produced by none other than Professor Krish Bhaskar, the man behind Triple A’s failed bid for the rotting remains of MG Rover. Prof Bhaskar says the performance and engineering specification of the project, known as Tempest, was signed off a few weeks ago. Plans for project Tempest are very ambitious and include "class-leading fuel economy, a host of active and passive safety features and performance (…) monitored by a series of on-board computers that intervene to ensure that the limits of the car are never exceeded."  So, that’s light weight and some stability control, then. However, he categorically denied the car was a reborn Healey (probably because he doesn’t own the rights to the deceased British brand). Rather, it’s " indication of how a spiritual successor to a Big Healey could look." The Prof says pricing for this non-Healey will start at £25,000, but no launch date was given. Confused? Join the club.

One thing we will say, though - that rendering is the absolute dog’s danglies. We hope Prof Bhasker finds a way to build it.

Linkage:
AutoExpress
4Car