1960 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite-Amazing Barn Find straight & solid, Runs! VIDEO

Description for Austin Healey Sprite 1960

We have sold 146 Bugeyes at Bugeyeguy since 2007 and we have never found an unrestored original Bugeye Sprite in such solid condition. This car is a once in a lifetime time-capsule that was first shipped to California in 1960 when new and had the good fortune of spending its entire life in dry California climate. conditions so ideal for preservation that even the paper envelope from motor vehicles mailed with a 13 cent stamp in 1979 is still in excellent condition after sitting in the door pocket for all these years. Add to that a heritage certificate that confirms the engine. car and body numbers are all correct and that the original color was Nevada Beige. which we have found to be the most rare Bugeye color. It's a wonderful and striking with the original burgundy red interior and this car deserves to be restored with that special color. so that it will look just like it did when new. Beige replaced primrose yellow at the factory at car number 9605 in January of 1959. and I suspect we have seen not one single beige car through our shop since most of the beige cars must have been repainted olde english white. a much more common color these days. Here we have confirmation that the car was originally beige so that it can be accurately restored by the new owner. Check out the video below. so you can see why I got so excited to find this car: The car will need complete restoration. But this car is so solid that the starting point is so far beyond where we normally start a restoration project. For example. the rockers and fender bottoms are excellent. never restored. never needed to be restored! That's not the norm. normally we see gaping holes all along the bottom of these cars. or prior work that is often done incorrectly. The nose is unmolested. Normally we see rust along the perimeter and evidence of many old dents and repairs. not so here. this is a straight and virtually dent-free nose with no old repairs. no stretched metal. no bondo. In fact there is no bondo anywhere on this car. I have posted a picture of the original radiator. notice how straight all the fins are. this is not the norm. we normally see multiple dents and dings to the fins. it's another testimonial of how little this car was used. and how it was never abused. The original 948 engine runs. We soaked the rings in oil and you can see the first startup in a video at our website by clicking here.  Even the original exhaust seems to be intact and working fine. We also have an underside video at our site (and many more pictures). The underside is excellent just some very minor surface rust. The spring boxes are excellent. The only rust repair needed on this car is the driver's footwell floor pan which will need to be replaced. This is a very easy repair as it is confined to one mostly flat roughly 2 foot square panel. We have the factory reproduction floor pans available. This is not the norm. you can usually expect much larger floor pan repairs on these cars. not so here. One patch and the underside is done. We are moving to a larger shop this Spring and quite busy so we are hoping to place this car in a new home. However. we can do some or all the restoration required for the new owner after purchase. One possible path is to simply restore the interior. hydraulics and other mechanical systems and make this car a driver once again. and enjoy a moving time capsule tribute to these wonderful little cars!As with any classic car. this car is sold "as is" and with no guarantees of any kind. Sold with original California pink slip-clear title. The car is complete except for a few small trim items as pictured. For example. parking light lenses are included. they came in a box in the car. Any other parts like the nose emblem and license plate light are readily available. we have them all in stock. We ship cars weekly and we can help load and deliver this car anywhere in the world. in an enclosed transporter. Good luck bidding! Lots of claimed "barn finds" come and go. but it is exceptionally rare to find an unmolested and unrestored Bugeye in solid condition like this one!