This 1960 Austin Healey 3000 has been in a project state for decades now, and the way you see it here is much the way it looked 30 years ago. The seller reports that most of the needed parts are still with the car, but there are some small components missing. The Healey is certainly one of the more desirable British sports cars ever built, but it’s also not entirely difficult to find a driver that’s in complete condition; however, a nice one will set you back a bit money-wise. The seller has listed his Healey project here on craigslist for $9,000 and it resides in Marquette, Michigan.
While I don’t think the appetite for big projects is going away, I do think you’re going to see a shift soon where the demographic change will cause projects like these to languish even further. When the current crop of enthusiasts is googling projects cars from the 1980s, finding a next-generation owner who wants to take on a project of this scale gets even more challenging. Sure, if you grew up always wanting an Austin Healey 3000 to call your own, buying a project like this and bringing it back to life would be in the realm of possibility. But if you don’t have some sort of emotional bond with a car like this, would you really want to rebuild one?
The seller notes that the Healey has been stored inside for most of the last 30 years, except for two winters when it was “…carefully tarped and stored outside.” That sounds to me like someone got tired of not being able to put their daily driver in the garage while another Michigan winter raged outside. The seller does point out a few areas of rust in the photos, including the trunk lid and a few other body panels; the frame is reportedly solid. All body panels are original save for the fenders which have been replaced with fiberglass units. The car is missing its passenger seat, door handles, and unnamed small body parts.
Here are the aftermarket fenders, and you can see in the top photo plenty of other body parts scattered around the car. The drivetrain is complete, featuring a six-cylinder engine with a four-speed manual gearbox. The Healey ran when it went into storage and its disassembled state three decades ago but obviously hasn’t run since; however, the engine still turns over with a wrench. While prices for a healthy Austin Healey roadster are still strong and completely restored ones will always command a fair price, is this one of those cars that will become a harder sell when found in project-grade from like this one is?
Too much for too little. The proverbial “lots of money and lots of time” really fit this car.
Isn’t there an old joke about a kid who lived on a farm and wanted a pony for his birthday? On the big day his folks found him in the barn filthy from digging through all the piles of horse manure. When his folks asked what he was doing he said “I know there is a pony somewhere in this pile of $hite
It seems that these models are either mint perfect restored or a total project with nothing in between.
This looks like one of those 1200 piece puzzles, that you let your 4 year old play with for a couple of days, then left on the floor.
if it is a 2 seater it is worth saving but not by a amature restorer but by someone with deep pockets and or a skilled welder. . Now that it is sitting outside the detioration will be quicker and there will nothing to save on this car and it will become a parts or a donor car unless someone acts soon.
its a parts car
once I fell victim to a skilled photographer ( the owners wife was a photographer ) who threw a bucket of water on a black Austin Healey 3000 tri carb 2 seater and it looked so good I bought the car and paid for it sight unseen and when it came it turned out to be a rust bucket and the rust was eating the sheet metal from the inside out. Even the aluminum parts were deteriorating or completely fused together.
The driver who went to pick up the car told me that he went to a million dollar home down south and this car was in a small detached garage where the roof was partly missing and leaking and the water intrusion made the garage onto a greenhouse and it was like a sauna inside hence the sheet metal of the healey deteriorating from inside out. I still have the car but there is nothing left of the car after 20 years although it is stored inside now. I am keeping it since it is a 2 seater tri carb and it is very rare and i bought it when Austin Healeys were going for the $ 3500 to $ 4000 range.
This seller has to make a quick decision as to what he is going to do with this car or it will be just a pile of parts specially now that it is sitting outside. careful tarping outside has the same effect like making a sauna or a green house for the car since the water that seeps in does not go out and it eats into the sheet metal even the aluminum parts since the moisture does not dry up and is constantly next to the sheet metal just like in the car that i purchased.
Maybe it rusted from all the buckets of water thrown on it by the ace photgrapher.
Considering the amount of money and work to restore this one, I’d offer him $50.00. Too much mone
Mike has a point, not just AH , but most any 50 year + car today is either been restored, kept up in driving condition or is a forgotten project or is rusted out junk that’s not worth the effort. I checked out the pix on CL, parts car only.
Many restorations and project cars are approached by people with stars in their eyes and no idea of how to go about it. The most important element in any restoration is knowing the sequence of assembly and what has to be accomplished and in what order. Too many plunge into step three having no idea that their work will have to be redone because step one or two have been bypassed because they involve skills not yet acquired. My first car was a 1929 Pontiac with bad wood that I would learn about many months later. Believing that I (at 14) had purchased something needing minimal work, I surveyed my “gem” and concluded that the first order of business was to fix the rotted wiper blade. I took it off and cut a new one out of an old inner tube. “There” I said gushing with pride at my “accomplishment.” and knowing that I’d be driving it in no time. I was 14 and I would be young forever.