1950 Healey Silverstone Roadster

In the 1930s Donald Healey was the technical director of Triumph. In 1945 Donald Healey founded Healey Motor Co. Ltd in Warwick, England. From 1946 to 1953 he manufactured the Westland, Elliot, Sportmobile, Silverstone, Tickford, Abbott, Nash Healey, and the G-Type. In 1953, he began manufacturing his most successful car, the Austin Healey.

After World War II, sports car racing took off across Europe. Racers were converting Jaguars, Porsches, Triumphs and all manner of production cars to race cars. Into this milieu came Donald Healey and the Silverstone. Healey was a successful car designer and rally driver and founded the Donald Healey Motor Company Ltd. in 1945. He focused on producing expensive, high-quality, high-performance cars. Healey reasoned, 'Why should our customers have to convert a street car to a race car. Why not build a race car and put lights on it and make it streetable?' And he did.

In 1949 the most sporting of all the Healeys, the Silverstone, was announced. The Silverstone, named after the famed racing circuit, was a dual-purpose road and race car. It was truly a 'wolf in sheep's clothing.' It had a shorter chassis and stiffer springs. Its 104 horsepower could push the car past 100 miles per hour with a 0-60 mph time of 11 seconds. In essence, the Silverstone was a race car disguised as a street car; four wheel coil-over independent suspension; Lockheed hydraulic brakes; Riley twin cam race engine, and a hand-made aerodynamic aluminum body with hidden headlights. There was very little luggage space. It was a two-seater with a very light body; weighing just 2,100 pounds.

The Silverstone was equally at home on road or track and was soon making a name for itself in rallying and circuit racing. It went on to win almost every major race of its time including the 1949 Mille Miglia. Healey's team quickly sold all 104 hand-built Silverstones, as 100 was the minimum homologation needed to qualify for racing.

Just 105 were produced between 1949 and 1951, as Healey needed to produce 100 of his cleverly disguised race cars as 'street' versions in order to meet homologation requirements.