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Donald Healey worked for Triumph and Humber and had a successful competition career before setting up The Donald Healey Motor in Warwick, UK in 1946.
The company produced their own chassis and suspension which were fitted with engines, gearboxes and axles from other manufacturers - Riley, Nash, Alvis.
These chassis were bodied as sporting saloons and convertibles by a number of companies including Elliott, Westland, Tickford, Abbott and Duncan and were successful in racing and rallying, including Alpine Rallys and the Mille Miglia (Riley engined cars) and Le Mans (Nash engined cars)
Chassis were also sold on their own and had special bodies built on them by a number of different manufacturers.
In 1952 the company produced the Healey 100 using the Austin A90 engine; Austin liked the car and took over production, re-naming it the Austin-Healey 100, while the Healey company continued on development and competition work.
This is the point at which the Austin-Healey Club takes over - the AOHO only deals with cars that were built up to this point - the end of the 'Real' Healeys with the exception of a small number of Le Mans cars built in the 1960s.This is only a very brief summary to give an understanding of the cars we are involved with - there are a number of excellent books which go into much more detail, particularly those by Donald Healey/Peter Garnier and Geoffrey Healey.