Austin Healey Tyres
Classic Austin Healey Tyres
Select your Austin-Healey from the drop-down menu below to view its tyre recommendation page:
If your car is not listed, don't panic! Please give us a call on:
01302 711 123
or
Email: [email protected]
Austin Healey 3000 tyres
All these cars, we believe, will handle and look at their best on the 180 HR 15 Michelin XAS, with a 4.5” or wider wheel, which we now have on special offer.
Austin Healey History
In 1945, Donald Mitchell Healey, a successful engineer and race driver from Warwick, designed and manufactured the Healey 100, a two-seater sports automobile powered by a 2.6-litre four-cylinder engine. The automobile made its premiere in the 1952 Earls Court Motor Show, generating a lot of attention not just from the media, but also from the general people, and there was a lot of desire to make the car. The Lord of Austin provided financial backing for the car's manufacturing later that year. The Austin Healey 100 was born.
The Austin Healey 100/6, the next-generation automobile, was introduced in October 1956. The new automobile had undergone more development than its predecessor and was equipped with a six-cylinder engine, therefore the designation 100/6. This all came about as a result of the Austin Healey 100's triumph in motorsport. Back then, as it is now, success on the track was rewarded with success in the showroom.
More success and development resulted in the third vehicle leaving the Austin Healey stable. Austin Healey 3000. It is still largely recognised as one of the best British automobiles ever built.
Austin Healey Endurance Record car
The recreation of a special test car has been a dream come true for owner Martyn Corfield. He has wanted to own one of the original works special cars for years.
"I have always longed for one of these cars and to be able to restore it to full competition status. After many years searching I came across a letter from the Austin works to Donald Healey stating that the original streamliner 200mph car and its sister 24 Hour endurance car were scrapped in the late fifties after the Bonneville salt had made them unsafe to use. That scuppered my plans for a long time and although I did manage to acquire one of the original endurance car Dunlop callipers and one of the original 2.69 crown wheel and pinions together with an original undertray and black-faced speedo (which was adopted to minimise glare in the desert sun) this proved to be as far as I could go in terms of original items".
"Then one day I heard a rumour of 'the last known factory lightweight chassis' which I purchased after verifying its likely originality with two known Healey specialists. This chassis is lightened in the ways that the works used and was being used in the seventies to underpin another project. This seemed the best place to start a recreation. I knew that if I was to attempt an endurance record I would have to re-engineer the car to a safe and competent standard and as such any old parts just would not do the job even if they existed".
"It was my objective to set about reconstructing a car capable of not only replicating the 1954 achievements, but also a car that embraced the spirit and style of the original vehicle (no modern tricks). So I sought professional help from the best Healey competition experts that I could find and put the project in the hands of Jeremy Welch" Says Martyn Corfield.
Martyn made contact with us at Longstone Classic Tyres as he required a classic tyre that would be able to cope with constant high speeds and loads, luckily Martyn was going down the same route as Healey originally did and utilised 16" wheels instead of the Austin Healys 15" factory fit wheels.
This would give the car a higher theoretical top speed due to the tyres having a larger overall diameter. We decided that the best tyre to use would be the Michelin 6.00 R 16 Michelin Pilote X. A "W" speed rated (168mph) radially constructed tyre with the looks and shape of a '50's cross-ply racing Englebert tyre. Michelin, to their credit, were more than happy to test a tyre to destruction to find its true limits which were far beyond that which the Endurance Healey was aiming for! The technical department at Clermont Ferrand was also able to simulate the loads that the car would generate at the Millbrook testing ground so we are able to offer accurate tyre pressure recommendations.