The 1951-1954 NASH-HEALEY: ANGLO-AMERICAN-ITALIAN SPORTS CAR beat the Corvette to the marketplace, but only lasted four model years.
When you think of historic Le Mans champions, you picture Porsches, Ferraris, Aston Martins, and Jaguars howling down the Mulsanne straight. But in 1952, a Nash Inline-Six-powered Nash-Healey lightweight racer bested all of those greats, earning a class win and third place overall behind the dominant Mercedes-Benz 300 Gullwing SLs. Over the years, the Inline-Six-cylinder Nash engine was available with dual and tri-power carburetion.
That year was the best showing of the Nash-Healey in four consecutive outings at Le Mans, but there’s no denying the marque’s place in sports car history. Today, the production-version Nash-Healey roadsters, below, and Le Mans coupes, above, styled by Pininfarina, are highly collectible and trade for between $40,000 on the low end to north of $100,000 depending on condition. Values for these low-production sports cars have held steady over the last decade, but interest remains strong for nice examples, judging from recent auction sales.
Despite a total production run of 506 cars, they seem to turn up for sale fairly often. Sarasota Cafe Racer Howard Mintz owns the red coupe, while the roadster is one of 104 first series, alloy-bodied Nash-Healey Le Mans Roadsters. Few survive today. Fewer still are as appealing as this one in Nicola Bulgari’s NB CENTER FOR AMERICAN AUTOMOTIVE HERITAGE in Allentown, PA.
For the full story on the NASH-HEALEY: ANGLO-AMERICAN-ITALIAN SPORTS CAR, please visit http://carguychronicles.com/nash-healey-first-american-sports-car/
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