While the term “hot rod” may not coincide with British built cars very often, it is an old concept much like this 1956 Austin Healey 100. Revered for being a fantastic British built sports car with a nimble power plant and fold down windscreen, the 100 is by no means a fast car to those who have the need to go fast. So like many cars, a bit of hot rodding was in order and a Dual Quad 327 Corvette engine was fitted into the nose of this fine looking British classic. Featuring custom width rear fenders and a heavily weathered appearance, you would certainly get loads of attention, although the purists will have a fit over this Healey 100! Early on into the bidding, this car is currently up to $4,050, with a buy it now of $22,500. Check out this neat hot rod here on eBay out of Beach Haven, New Jersey.
The original 4 cylinder engine has long been tossed in favor of a Corvette 327 with a dual quad set up. One thing that I do appreciate a lot about this car is that the hood has not been modified to accommodate the engine swap. This rowdy 100 is not currently running, and hasn’t run in years according to the seller. Also there is no definitive description about the engine other than it will need “freshening up”. To me that means it could need fluids and a tune up, or a complete rebuild. The engine is backed up by a manual transmission, which I am sure makes this car an absolute riot and a handful to keep under control.
The interior is bares bones much like the car was intended to be, but there is an unusual shifter to be seen. The driver side seat cushion is missing, and the 100 specific fold down windscreen is cracked. I imagine the owner ditched the seat cushion to sit a little lower in this already low slung roadster.
The exterior is interesting as the car almost appears as a project built many decades ago minus the finish of the body work. I cannot tell if this car is clear coated, or if it has been wiped down with some sort of oil. There is a mild shine to the car the reveals a minor dent in the passenger side front fender. The rear fenders have been widened and follow the body line and form rather well. There are vents in the front edge of the rear fenders but the rest of the body appears stock. The seller mentions that the previous owner stated that the car was built by an experienced hot rod builder. There is no indication as to what sort of suspension is fitted to the rear, but you can bet that its either a Ford or Chevy straight axle. All in all a very cool car with a unique look, this Healey would certainly be a fun ride. Are you a fan of this V8 Healey?
Mos def. Strip the rest of the paint off and put the fear of god into little old ladies everywhere.
What the hell? This thing is ruined!
Absolute klunker! Throw the motor as far as possible and re-install an original drive train then it might be worthwhile. As it is, no, no, no! A friend of mine fitted a V 8 back in 1956 when it was still nearly new and although it went o.k. in a straight line, when he tried to race it he was swallowed up by TR’s and MG’s in the twisty bits. He soon removed the V8 and went back to the original motor and while he was in the process he decided to overhaul the gearbox, only to discover that it was actually a 4 speed with first gear blanked off. He then restored it to a four speed without telling anybody, used the original mill and went back to racing where he clobbered the Triumphs and MG’s as he could get away from a standing start so much quicker. Previously they would leave him at the start and although he could catch them before the next corner, there was never enough time to pass them.
Allard, Jensen, Railton, Griffith,Nash Healey, Cobra . . . the list of successful American engines in British cars goes on and on and on, we can included the MGB GT V8 as well as that motor began life in a Buick/Oldsmobile! How ’bout the original Ford GT40 – that was essentially a Lola or somethin’ similar.
Its called Hot Rodding here in America…and I could see why your friend was dissappointed after swapping out the 4 cyl. for a British v-8…nof much improvement there
Paul, you’ve obviously never driven a British V8. Suggest you try an MGB GT-V8 with a factory fitted 3.5 Rover V8. It is very quick, and unlike pretty well all American Tin (sorry, metal) it will go around corners. Proving to our friends in America that there is indeed a world at the end of a drag strip. To add to the fun you could run the 3.5 out to 5.0 with the aid of a stroker crank …. :-)
I had the transmission on my 100-4 unblocked and I had the electric overdrive re-wired so I had overdrive in every gear, including 2 in reverse. You could switch on and off in any gear. Low gear was useless unless you used the overdrive.Having 8 gear forward was fun when I was 18; fun but not very useful.
Reg; “he was swallowed up by TR’s and MG’s in the twisty bits.” _ I helped build an V8- A-100 back in 66′. A friend in machinist school had one and he wanted Cobra performance, so I said lets put a 289″ Hi-po into his car. The build went quickly and the car was quite quick. And it didn’t suffer any loss of slip angle or stick, in the corners.
Contrary to the above post, the 289″ weighed only 40-lbs more then the Austin Healey ‘100’ which had a rather heavy large displacement shaky 4-cyl.
The Ford V8 was smoother and built to Cobra(306-Hp) specs, had a lot more horsepower and torque. For sure it didn’t suffer any losses of its ability to get through the twisties.
The mismatched wheel sizes bother me. The rest- well, it’s a modded car and the disjointed nature of the overall effect isn’t exactly terrible. It’s already too far gone to be made original. Hmm. Maybe it’s time to MadMax it with some machine guns or missile tubes on the front wings/fenders, a roll bar with lots of lights, maybe some interesting flags/pennants. Oh, and chains everywhere. Might be an interesting art car / Burning Man beastie.
Now hold on a sec, I love British roadsters as much as Jamie, but this has been the oldest swap for decades. Olds motors, 392 hemi’s, Corvette motors but the coolest one is the “Healey Cobra”, a 100 ( or 3000) with a 289 Ford. I read Shelby even contacted Healey about a SBC in one before the Cobra. It was shot down by BMC and Chevrolet. Shelby then went to A-C and Ford. Considering the success of the Ford Cobra, would you say BMC missed the boat?
These were king of the gymkana circuit. In Milwaukee years ago, they had gymkana’s at shopping centers on Sunday ( when stores were closed on Sunday). Clubs would mark off a course in the vacant parking lots, and stuff like this would show up.( Can you imagine the liability of something like that today) There was a guy with a ratty 3000 like this with a 289 and he cleaned up on everybody. I’d sure like to see how this was made, as a motor like this will tear itself out of this car. Cool find.
Driver needs an aluminum Bomber seat!
how can lister twice state it’s an auto trans when it isn’t? Healey 100s had a side shifter, at the approximate position on the trans tunnel as this car, although this one looks a little bit towards the stern, hence the odd shaped shifter.
I was one of those guys with my 100-6 with a 289 running the gymkana circuit back in the day. It was a fun way to spend a Sunday with a great group of people.
Capitol Court, Milwaukee, Wis. 1972. At that time, Milwaukee had a big sports car following.
There is a guy that brings Healey 3000 to the Mopar shows because he has a 440 stuffed in it. I guess it is one rowdy ride. I think I have been watching him cruise through the shows for about 30 years now.
Wow, I think it’s great as it is. I always found it interesting, engines labelled as “Corvette ” engines. I have seen that term used, all my life. So, where are all those Corvettes, that donated their engines, to cars like this… and every 57 Chevy on earth? Regardless, I think this Healy would be a blast, once running. Needs a Muncie 4 speed though.
They [ the old corvettes] are in back issues of BF from this year ( :
I think it would have been great to drive to uni in one of these.
Glad a couple of you mentioned this, but there used to be a trend back in the day of dropping American V8s into big Healeys. It was popular enough that those cars were known as “Nasty Boys”. And I love that the people hating this are the people that would drool over a Cobra, which is literally the exact same formula.
Big Healeys are certainly nice-looking and cool in their own right, but c’mon. If you saw a Nasty Boy conversion from the late 60s with an old twin-carb Vette motor stuffed in it at a show, you’d totally ignore the bone stock trailer queen Healey beside it. This is rad.
Very cool and one off. American hotrodding and ingenuity at its finest. Us hot rodders have been trying to make it go faster since the first car hit the street. I remember in the 60’s when guys were putting corvair engines in anything Volkswagen based; rumor was that the GM engineers designed the Corvair with rotation opposite the VW so they couldn’t use the Corvair engine in the VW. Alas, the capable Americans used to Modify the VW transaxle so it could use then Corvair engine with a simple, cheap and readily available engine adapter from EMPI!!!
What do you do with this?
The body and rear end of the chassis have been changed so much it would take more than the car if worth to bring it back. It’s got a US rear end, which the seller doesn’t mention, and you don’t know how much the back end of the chassis has been chopped up and welded to put it in there—or whether it will remain installed if anyone ever got the car running and started to run big torque through it.
There are no underside shots and no useful information from the seller about what was done underneath to shoehorn the V8 in there. And just to confirm how little we know about it, the seller initially said the car has an auto transmission…but it doesn’t.
Be sure to read Ken Tilley’s comment above to understand what can happen to a car’s balance and performance when this kind of major alteration is done.
To put it back to original would take more than it would be worth when you add everything up. It’s no fun saying it, but I think this car is a losing proposition no matter what you do with it, unfortunately.
@Dolphin.
Hi dolphin.
I forgot that the 1960 Big Healey that I owned back in the day, I managed to crash into an Armco steel barrier head on during one of my more exuberant drives, and when they pulled the engine to straighten out the front end, they found that a previous owner had fitted a massive V8 engine mount. The fact that it had been refitted with a 3 litre engine would appear to prove my point.
$22000 for the memory of an old Healey with a well used Chevy engine. What would you do with it that would amuse you for more than 30 minutes.? I once looked at a 100-4 with a 283 in it. I declined to purchase when i saw the rubber hose from the Chevy master cylinder to the brake lines. Nothing indicates this is of any better build quality.
I worked on a 1954 or so 100-4 that had a 3.8 Jag engine and transmission. I had a stock 100-4 at the time. The Jag engined car handled very poorly.
The 100-4 transmission had low gear and three higher gears. The shift pattern was backwards. The original shift knob was labelled L, 1, 2, 3. Most had a block off plate which was easily removed, but low gear was just about worthless. Adding a true four speed from a later Healey transformed the car.
This chassis was never meant to hold the torque of a V-8 engine and while that is bad the brakes were never meant for either the speed or the weight imposed upon this chassis. If it were for race tracks only it would still be dangerous. If used on the street, I would consider it a lawsuit waiting to happen because someone is going to get hurt or killed by this thing.
To those that have done such swaps it is generally with a much smaller motor in both power and weight. Additionally with fewer changes to the suspension. I seldom say this but the words DEATH TRAP come to mind after I looked at the photos provided.
That is not to say it can not be done but a functional car is a balance of power, brakes, structure, overall weight and many other factors. If you want an idea about what this would be like try to find the BILL COSBY comedy routine about the Cobra that Shelby built for him. This will be much worse.
A buddy of mine in SoCal had a similar set up (Hi-Po 327/four-speed) back in the late-1960s/early-’70s that went around corners very nicely, thank you. It surprised a lot of more powerful machinery.
A few years later, I also had a 100-4 that had been set up for a SBC and ‘Glide back in the late ’50s as a M/SP drag racer. The rolling body/chassis (with a title!) cost me the princely sum of $65, to which I added a ’57 283 and iron Slip-n-slide that came out of a friend’s Bel Air.
A supplier to my metal stampings business decided he just had to have the Healey and I ended up selling the car to him. He rang me up a few weeks later to say what a ball it was to drive, albeit in a straight line.
Greetings All,
Have restored 3 Healeys, this amuses me, but I’ve a project that takes priority.
Love the power plant exchange, hope it’s done well. Have my doubts, as the rear diff conversion looks a little crude without wires. The early lesser numbered spoke wheels, 60? Might have been lacking but the 72 spoke version was up for the task. The original diff, if in good repair would be able to handle the 327.
Scuttle shake would likely need to be addressed.
Aesthetically, the dash bothers me, but I like what he did, and do not hold bad thoughts as these things were modified back in the day and to get bunged up about it now seems silly.
Be happy it exists at all, and if you want to return it to Concours condition, by all means, but then again, while it’s a noble Healey, it’s not an Alfa 8C so I’m not sure why you’d bother.
This car needs an ejector seat, to eject whoever did this to this classic!
looking at this reminds me of a guy in the east end of toronto , he ran a garage where all kinds of wonderful stuff got built for instance he had a bug eyed sprite that they dropped a 394 olds with auto in it with a narrowed olds rear end to say this was quick was a under statement ! another thing that came out of there was a mini with a cosworth ford engine stuffed in it! and the icing on the cake was a vw bug with a 327 chev v8 in behind the front seats they built a custom frame and dropped the bug body on it!
Needs sidepipes
I think this goes back to the discussion of the Packard with the Chrysler flat head 8 in it and my extreme hard driving of my E-Type flat floor, welded louver, side bonnet latch OTS that got a 100 point restoration. It was just a used car to me and the Packard owner/modifier, there were more used cars but this is my right now car. Sort of like having a girl friend who is Mz right-now but not Mz. Right. And to think I almost put a Chrysler LA V8 in my TR3.
Another good performing conversion was the 289 into a TR4 – the Ford weighed LESS than the tractor motor and you know what kind of power they could be tuned to produce! I’m really surprised we don’t see more of them.
I owned this car back in 2012. Rear and 3 speed trans are from ‘56 Chevy pet info I got from builder. Car ran and drove back then. Front brakes only and marginal at best…..
This car wasn’t built by Hot Rod builder I sold it to. It ran very strong. It is a solid car. Too bad it had paint half stripped and left outside
I have had 3 Austin Healey 106s with small block Chevy V8s, but they were always pretty cars. They screamed and were a ball to drive, but my favorite Healey was the 104 that I restored. The hot rod Healey leaves me cold.
This what a 100 4 should look like:
Late 60’s had a guy in town who put a V8 in his Healey. Sitting at a stop sign, the cigarette lighter popped / dropped into his lap, and began to burn through his shorts.
Anyways, the car bolted out into the street and rolled over from the handling and the new found torque. At someone’s else expense, I learned to respect horsepower.