They say old is gold, and for Jay Leno, his unrestored 1959 Austin-Healey Sprite is unlike anything you'd stumble upon in a car show. It's an untouched, one-owner, neatly preserved quirky relic perfect for the Californian backroads.
The first thing classic car prospectors do when they stumble upon a relic is to put it up for restoration. When Jay Leno first came across his 1959 Austin-Healey Sprite, he decided to preserve it.
"I mean, we could have restored it, made it look brand new with a little more effort. But I thought it might be kind of fun just to try and clean it up and see what 50-years of sitting in a garage does to a vehicle," he confessed.
According to Leno, the refreshed 1959 Austin-Healey Sprite Mark I was put in a garage in 1973. The original owner's son called him and asked if he was interested. He went out and looked at it, and even though it didn't run at the time, he decided to get it.
The 1959 Austin-Healey Sprite is perhaps the most essential sports car of its era – something like a Miata. It was produced in the United Kingdom between 1958 and 1971. The idea behind the company was to build a simple, low-cost sports car that could fit in a bike shed.
Leno's 1959 Austin-Healey Sprite has a 948cc engine, weighs under 1,500 pounds (680 kgs), and makes about 43 hp (43 ps).
"A lot of guys put the big block 1275 motor in there, get a little more power. But it's fun to drive it, just as it was intended," he said.
Unlike most owners, Leno didn't do much on his 1959 Austin-Healey Sprite. He didn't repaint it but instead cleaned it up and polished the chrome work. He also fixed the motor that had little to no compression.
Believe it or not, Leno's unrestored 1959 Austin-Healey Sprite runs perfectly today. Watch him cruise through the streets as he explains the history behind this relic in the video below.
Humphrey is a car enthusiast whose love and passion for automobiles extended into collecting, writing, driving, and working on cars. He got his passion for cars from his Dad, who spent thousands of hours working on his old junky 1970 E20 Toyota Corolla. Years later, he would end up doing the same with a series of lemons he’s owned throughout his adult life. Full profile
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