1953 Nash Healey Le Mans Coupe for sale in Elmhurst, Illinois

$33,500

1953 Nash Healey Le Mans Coupe.

This 1953 coupe is extremely rare. Records estimate a mere 62 of this particular body were ever built, yet the Nash Healey registry currently only accounts for some 30 examples still known to currently be in existence.

That makes the LeMans coupe literally rarer than the holy grail of car collecting!

Of course, the LeMans coupe is no Ferrari 250 GTO, yet it shares many similarities. It is powered by a bespoke engine with custom aluminum head and twin British SU carburetors (designed by Donald Healey of Austin-Healey fame). And, the body was hand built in the same Carrosserie Pinin Farina facility as many of the vintage Ferraris, including my all-time favorite, the Ferrari 275 GTB.

And, the similarities abound in the coachwork. Hand stitched leather interior, doors that shut with a snick, cast and polished door handles and pulls, Italianate painted dash, those lovely Italian cable pulley window winder mechanisms that function so smoothly.

Each body was individually hand-crafted at the Pininfarina facility in Cambiano, Italy.

The roof itself consists of 6 separately-formed panels, carefully hand-welded together to form a strong structure.

The remaining panels were similarly produced, and the entire assemblage was joined together in a single, seamless structure (save, of course, for the doors, bonnet, and boot lid).

This resulted in a very strong and near-rattle-free body, which was then mounted on the beefy Donald Healey-designed and produced frame.

The frame and suspension were fabricated in Great Britain at the Healey facility. Although standard (and readily available) brake components sourced from the Nash parts bins (drums, cylinders, shoes, etc) were employed, Healey devised a cleaver and extremely strong front suspension, consisting of massive aluminum castings employed in a trailing arm fashion, to insure the front wheels always remained exactly perpendicular to the chassis.

One notable difference (and advantage, to my taste), is that the LeMans, with its British fabricated chassis and Italian bodywork, features a robust, reliable American engine, with parts still readily and economically available.

The consortium between The Nash Motors Company and Donald Healey resulted in Nash providing the complete drive train, similar to those in their contemporary, top-of-the-line Ambassador automobiles.

This 6 cylinder inline engine of 1953 displaced 4.1 liters, and generated

140 high-torque horsepower with the twin SU carburetors. Later vehicles were sold with a pair of side-draft Carter carburetors, Im told as a cost cutting measure, and, in my opinion notably inferior to the simple and faultless SU carburetors (as well as beautiful, with their polished aluminum piston towers). I have 3 vehicles with SU carbs and have never had an issue with any of them.

The Nash drive package included the venerable and virtually bullet-proof Borg Warner manual transmission with overdrive in each gear, yielding a theoretical 6 forward speeds (high and low overdrive in each of the three gear sets), coupled with the sturdy torque-tube-style rear differential.

This combination was so powerful and reliable that a 1952 Nash Healey finished first in class and 3rd OVERALL in the 1952 Le Mans 24-hour race, beat out only by a pair of Mercedes factory 300SLs.

The Borg Warner overdrive transmission was used in many American vehicles in the 50s, including Hudson, Studebaker, Nash, and Ford, to name a few. All of these other implementations used a throttle kickdown switch to downshift from overdrive to standard gear.

The driver shifted down by pressing the throttle all the way to the floor.

The Nash Healey employed a different technique, and one I love:

the kickdown switch is actually a button in the center of the horn ring, readily at hand to the driver, and a mere tap on that button causes the transmission to shift down, without needing to go to full throttle.

To shift back into the higher overdrive gearing, the driver need only lift pressure off the accelerator pedal for a second, and the transmission automatically upshifts. It is like having a manual and automatic transmission at the same time!

The best part of the Borg Warner system is its simplicity and reliability. Just a relay, a kickdown switch, and a shifting solenoid make up the entire mechanism, and it rarely ever fails, and is easy to maintain.

Miles:  500 000 or more

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