By Dean Larson

Photos: Seller, Craigslist

If you’re reading this right now, I sure hope you’re capable of getting to Atlanta with a trailer and $7,000 faster than I can. This 1956 Austin-Healey 100-4 is well preserved with period-modifications and legit SCCA racing history. Check it out here on Atlanta Craigslist.

The standard Austin-Healey 100 with its four-cylinder engine and 90-inch wheelbase is a fantastic road car, and a great race car as well. Healeys competed in many SCCA racing classes in stock form, as well as land speed racing and endurance racing at events like the Le Mans 24-hour event. Given the Healey’s affordable price point, it was also an ideal car for the budding privateer or weekend warrior to get started in.

But the car we’re looking at today is a bit more extreme than your average 100 hp Healey. Like many others, this car was converted in period to a Chevrolet small-block V8 driveline, yielding 150 to 375 hp, depending on the donor selected. Most V8 Healeys, seem to have been fitted with 327-ci small blocks with a single four-barrel carb, or a trio of two-barrels. Most sources claim that the 327-ci swap resulted in a negligible increase in weight over the Healey’s 90-100 hp, 2,660 cc four cylinder.

In addition to the new V8 up front, swapped Healeys would require some supporting modifications, many of which are still present on this car. The owner cites that the front brakes have been converted to discs and rear axle was taken from a Corvette. The body has also been modified, with a tilt-style front end, a hood scoop and wider wheel arches to cover the new Daisy mag wheels and B.F. Goodrich tires. Sure, you could make the argument that these aren’t the most appropriate wheels for a vintage racer, but the look is so brutal, and fitting with the worn out paint, fading pinstripes and crude roundels.

The seller states that this rough and tough Healey once mixed it up on the track alongside Cobras, Corvettes and Italian exotics in the Big Bore class. In the seller’s additional photos, there’s an SCCA tag on the dash from a road race event at Sonoma Raceway/Sears Point from July 1970.

The car is being offered here on Atlanta Craigslist in several configurations, each with its respective price. For the car as pictured, with the Daisy mag wheels and windshield is listed at $8,000. The seller has also listed the car on The H.A.M.B. forum for $6,000 with the wheels but no windshield. So it seems $7,000 or less should take the car as is, and I really hope someone buys and rebuilds the car in this configuration. If your tastes are a bit more conventional, the seller also has loads of spares, including additional bodywork, and the stock Healey engine, axle, brakes, wheels, etc., for $12,000.