Donald Mitchell Healey CBE (3 July 1898 – 13 January 1988) was a noted English car designer, rally driver and speed record holder.
Early life
Born in Perranporth, Cornwall, the elder son of Frederick (John Frederick) and Emma Healey (née Mitchell), who at that time ran a general store there, at an early age Donald Healey became interested in all things mechanical, particularly aircraft. He studied engineering while at Newquay College. When he left, his father bought him an expensive continuing his engineering studies at Kingston Technical College. Sopwith had sheds at the nearby Brooklands aerodrome and racing circuit.
Barely 16 when World War I started, he volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in 1916, before the end of his apprenticeship, and earned his "wings" as a pilot. He went on night bombing raids, served on anti-Zeppelin patrols, and also as a flying instructor. Shot down by British anti-aircraft fire on one of the first night bombing missions of the war, he was invalided out of the RFC in November 1917 after a further series of crashes, and was 2nd overall the next year. Now in demand as a competition driver he sold the garage business, moved to the Midlands to work for Riley but soon moved to the Triumph Motor Company as experimental manager. The next year he was made technical director and responsible for the design of all Triumph cars. He created the Triumph Southern Cross and then the Triumph Dolomite 8 straight-eight sports car in 1935 following his class win, and 3rd overall, in the 1934 Monte Carlo Rally in a Triumph Gloria of his own design
Healey Elliot
Healey's first car appeared in 1946, the Healey Elliot, a saloon with a Riley engine, developed by Dr J.N.H Tait. Following his Triumphs it won the 1947 and 1948 alpine rallies and the touring class of the 1948 Mille Miglia. This was a long and fruitful relationship for Healey, in part because Jensen had been making body shells for Austin-Healey since the 1952 demise of the similar Austin A40 Sports. Healey's first project with a Jensen was re-engineering the Jensen 541S with a V8 engine in 1961, the resulting car being a personal favourite of Healey's. Ten years later, Healey helped design the Lotus engined Jensen-Healey together with Lagonda designer William Towns, to replace the Austin-Healey, which BMC were discontinuing.
He designed this new Jensen-Healey using Vauxhall running gear and prototyped it using Vauxhall and Ford engines, which either had insufficient power, did not fit the sloping bonnet, or were unable to comply with the emission standards set in place in USA.
He resisted offers from Saab and Ford to produce a new sports car. has also placed a small monument, in the form of a sports car, and an inscribed plaque, as a memorial to Donald Healey, next to the Visitor Centre in the garden of Trebah which is now open to the public.
His obituary in The Times reported that Healey was a small rotund man with a flashing smile and that he kept himself immensely fit, and had been, in his day, an expert water skier.
- In 1996, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.