The Nash-Healey – An American car with European looks
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The Nash-Healey was an American two-seater sports car produced by Nash Motors in
co-operation with Donal Healey Motor Company from 1951 until 1954. The Healey was the flagship car for the company, used to promote the other Nash models.
It was the first sports car produced by an American company after World War 2 ended, and also the first one since the Great Depression.

Nash supplied the engines, transmissions and some other smaller things to Healey. The engine was a 3.85L (234.8 cu) big inline six-cylinder engine taken from the Nash Ambassador with a manual three-speed gearbox with Borg-Warner overdrive. The engine was fitted with a lighter, higher-compression aluminium cylinder head with twin SU carburetors. All this increased the power from the stock 112bhp to 125bhp.
The engine was heavy. however, Healey originally wanted to use an even heavier 5.4L (331 cu) Cadillac V8. The car was build in such a way though what customers could later still swap a V8 in it if they so wanted.

The car featured a widened and reinforced version of Healeys box-section ladder type steel frame classis with independent from suspension.

Healey designed the aluminium body, but they did incorporate the typical Nash grill and bumpers. The body got fabricated in Birmingham.

For 1952 Italian designer Pinin Farina completely redesigned the Healey to make the car look more similar to the rest of Nash’s models.
The front got changed completely by incorporating a new grill with inboard headlights, the side fenders were changed completely and they added small tail fins to the back of the car. Also the car got a curved windshield instead of a two-piece flat windshield like it had before.
To save aluminium the body was now made of steel, except for the hood, trunk lid and dashboard.
The engine size was also increased from 3.85L to 4.1L (252 cu) now producing 140hp

Building these cars was really expensive though, due to the shipping costs. The engines were build in Kenosha, Wisconsin (USA), they were then transported to the Healey factory in England were they got installed into the frame, after this the frame plus engine got send to Italy where they got given a body. After all of this the cars were send back to the USA where they got sold for $5,908, while the newly introduced Corvette only cost $3,513.

For 1953 Nash introduced a coupe version of the Healey to go alongside the convertible version which was now fittingly called the Nash-Healey Convertible instead of just Nash-Healey. Nash called the coupe the “Le Mans” Coupé after becoming 3rd in the 1952 24 Hours of Le Mans.

In 1954 Nash Motors became part of the American Motors Corporation (AMC)
Nash was faced with a lack of recources leaving them to delay the production of the 1954 models until June. They also stopped producing the convertible version leaving only a slightly redesigned “Le Mans” Coupé.
After Healey started focusing on the Austin-Healey 100 they abandoned the Nash-Healey, leaving them to stop the production completely in August 1954. They did later sell a couple left over 1954s as 1955 models.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading :)

Have a nice day! :D

Marijn M.