Over $800,000 spent building this period-correct hotrod | V8-powered Austin-Healey 100-6 for sale

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What if someone built a tribute not to a specific car, but to a time period? That’s the general idea behind this V8-powered, 1957 Austin-Healey 100-6.

Commissioned by a “wealthy multiple sports car collector,” the 100-6 was transformed into a sort of period-correct ‘60s hotrod with upgrades like a 327-cubic-inch V8, five-speed Tremec transmission, Bilstein shocks and an aluminum radiator.

In all, over $800,000 was spent to bring the Austin-Healey to its current condition.

Find this 1957 Austin-Healey 100-6 for sale from Fantasy Junction for $265,000.

Well if it's a ''period correct build'' they didn't have the Tremec 5spd back then.

Um, they might be using a pretty liberal amount of interpretation of a late 50's Hot rod...

Were they putting bigger engines in those cars "Back in the day" and matching them up with a transmission that was up to the job ?

Why go back to the stone ages ;) when you can get the current versions of those parts :)

What is a Perfect original #1 example worth ?

I was wondering how much It would cost to "Build" a custom one of today.

Is 100$/hour a resonable price for getting body / engine / mechanical work done ? That's 8000 hours !

wzayante said:

Originally built for $800,000? Really? It's a nice car, but the owner who commissioned its creation was an incredibly poor project manager. Well executed, but there are many more interesting, useful and fun cars out there that you could get for the current asking price. 

For sure....$800K way too much for this build.... Still using the stock chassis, come on, this is crazy money spent on a car that will feel and drive no better than the original 1957 car. 

Nice car, and of course I'm envious, but really, where did the top half of that $800K go?  And can a A-H chassis really get 300+ HP and whatever huge torque down on the pavement safely?  I wouldn't want to blip the throttle and open up those dual quads in the middle of a fast curve.

In the '80s, I was editor of the magazine for the Austin-Healey Club, Pacific Centre in southern California. There were a few club members who had dropped V8s into their Big Healeys at some time in the past, most some 20 years prior when they were just old sports cars.

Apparently the simplest way to do it was to use a small-block Ford, which was narrower than the Chevy and therefore required little or no underhood sheet metal work. One owner showed me a trick to the exhaust: if you swapped the manifolds right for left, the exit of the stock Ford log manifold was at the FRONT of the engine, not the REAR, so you could have a good exhaust shop bend up some tubing up where there was lots of room, instead of cutting the firewall.

The ultimate V8-powered Big Healey never came to pass. Carroll Shelby went to see his longtime friend Donald Healey, who was always looking for ways to make his cars go faster, and tried to get a couple of 100-6 chassis that he could stuff full of Dearborn horsepower. Healey was eager to help (remember, DMH built a Big Healey that he personally drove to 196 mph at Bonneville, which is clearly nudging up against Dan Gurney and Bruce McLaren in the "built not bought" sweepstakes), but BMC sent him a strongly-worded letter insisting that no engines outside the corporate umbrella were to be used. 

But I can't help notice the disparity between the alleged build cost of $800,000 and the asking price of $265,000...

Why not just save $700K and by a 57 Corvette instead?

Spent $800k and used edelbrock carbs....really....

I was wondering how much It would cost to "Build" a custom one of today.