A Blast From the Past: I’m Reacquainted with My Mk III/A Austin Healey Sprite

This was, until circa 2004, my Mk III/A Austin Healey Sprite.  Or as Mrs UMPH would have it, the car that tried to kill her.   Not just once, mind you; the allegations levelled against my former pride and joy include poisoning via paint fumes wafting off its then new exhaust extractors, AND hypothermia.  Personally, I think it’s a little harsh to blame the Sprite’s heater-less state for my dearest nearly freezing to death during a late autumn drive around the foothills of Hobart’s Mt Wellington, sans roof!  But anyway … .

Since then, the car has belonged to relief teacher Tony, who, for the first few years of ownership, also lived in Tasmania but now calls Queensland, on Australia’s mainland, home.  Now it’s for sale.  

For those of you scratching your heads over the Mk III/A part of the model designation, it’s a unique Aussie thing.  The British Motor Corporation offered one car under two nameplates: the Sprite and its 99% identical twin, the MG Midget.  Both versions were exported to Australia in partially built form - aka completely knocked down (CKD) kits - with final assembly performed in BMC facilities Down Under. 

Very artistic!

Apparently, there was a mixup, with a batch of Mk II Midgets being shipped instead of the Mk III Sprites that had been ordered (the former were a mark number behind the latter, as there was no Mk I - or Frog Eye - equivalent in the MG variant of the car).  Rather than upset the dealers who had requested Sprites, it was decided to badge and sell them as per the order.

This was easily achieved, given that Sprites and Midgets - sometimes referred to using the portmanteau “Spridgets” - featured only very minor trim and equipment variations.  Swapping the badges and front grille was no trouble at all.  However, accounting for the Midget’s extra bling - a chrome centerpiece running longitudinally along the bonnet and similar adornments along the car’s sides - as well as standard wire wheels (optional on the Sprite) and, possibly, a front sway bar (also optional on the A-H variant?), required a marketing solution.  And so the III/A was born!  

Funnily enough, my (Tony’s) III/A no longer has the extra chrome, although there is evidence that the bonnet, front mudguards, doors and rear quarters were drilled to accommodate the items described above.  As you can see, it still has its wire wheels.  It also has a 1098 cc “A” series engine, as it did when first built, although this one now runs a Mini Cooper S camshaft and that set of potentially deadly exhaust extractors.  The interior remains standard, except for the addition of a ProtoTipo style sports steering wheel, a matching gear knob, a set of racing harnesses and a sturdy roll bar.  Quartz Halogen headlights and set of spotties complete the modifications list.

U M P H

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.)

All photos, other than the first shown, courtesy of Tony.

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