Ford versus Ferrari: Jaguar and Austin-Healey go head to head in a 1960s scrap to savour at Snetterton on Saturday. The ninth HSCC AUTOSPORT 3 Hours retrospective – again using an all-GT format following last year’s experiment – outnumbers the eight
contemporary events of ’57-’64, and has attracted another strong entry. Courtesy of Jeremy Welch and his client Julian Thomas, last year’s second-placed Healey 3000 and an E-type provided another perspective on the action this coming Saturday.
Conceived a dozen miles apart in England’s heartland – Jaguar’s E-type in industrial Coventry and Donald Healey’s 3000 in historic Warwick (although early Healeys were built by Austin in Birmingham, hence the double-barrelled monicker, the 3000s were made at
BMC’s Abingdon plant) – the standard-setting models beloved worldwide are strikingly similar in overview, yet refreshingly different. Both Grand Tourers used proven parts and demonstrated their mettle on race tracks. In the latter’s case, on gruelling rallies too.
Let me introduce the two protagonists. In the red corner is the Austin-Healey: square-jawed, stockily-built and with the stance of a fighting dog. A glint in its eyes and smiling mouth bely its snarl as its opponent approaches. Slinking into the blue (OK, silver) corner is the Jaguar, unmistakeably feline with the rear musculature of a rampant big cat. This is going to be some confrontation, for the 3000 and E-type models’ CVs are both valiantly impressive.
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