A CURIOUS THING ABOUT R&T’S August 1961 road test of the Sprite II is the magazine’s complete omission of the name Austin-Healey. Variously the car’s BMC allegiance is noted, but otherwise it’s called simply the Sprite II, the second generation of the lovingly-termed Bugeye Sprite introduced some three years before. Even the magazine’s introductory logo reads BMC.
Great Enthusiasm and Interest. “Different as the Mark II Sprite appears,” R&T wrote, “there are more changes than meet the eye…. The ‘Two-look’ will, we think, go over in a big way. Everywhere we took the test car, it was examined with great enthusiasm and interest.”
This and other images from R&T, August 1961.
R&T described, “The front fenders no longer lift with the hood, though the curved separation line behind the wheel cutout remains. Headlights are at exactly the 24-in. legal height with the car unloaded. The alligator-type hood is released by an interior pull knob (marked B for bonnet)….
“The cheerful grille is gone,” R&T notes, as, of course, are the bugeyes. The magazine claims “an equivocal aluminum stamping… is better looking in fact than in photo.”
A Trunk Lid. R&T enthused, “The big news at the rear end of the Sprite is the trunk lid. It is lockable, too, and uses a separate key.” To access the lidless storage area of an original Bugeye, you merely tossed stuff behind the seats and worried about fetching them only later.
“The Mark II is a vast improvement,” R&T said, “merely because the access is so much better, and you can pack things in all those nooks and crannies [around the spare tire and 7.2-gallon gas tank] because you can at least see them now.”
Reading between the lines, one learns a lot about the Bugeye as well.
Room for the Kiddies, Sorta. “Logically,” R&T continued, “with the access now at the rear, the trunk is ‘moved’ a foot to the rear and the extension of the cockpit makes space for kids to ride—crosswise, but fairly happy. Legroom here varies from zero to five in., with the accent on the former.”
“A five- or six-year-old,” R&T assayed, “will even find space enough to curl up for a nap, but on trips of over 100 miles, be prepared for youthful request to sit in the passenger’s lap to get out of the draft.”
Kids were apparently more hardy back then; 100 miles??
Mark II “Accommodations.” The magazine described, “Cockpit ventilation in the Sprite seems to have just happened. Fully open, it’s as fun as can be and the front seat is well protected, apparently by the doors’ high sides. But when the top is up, there is a steady blast on the side of your head. With the side screens on [Granpa, what’s a ‘side screen’? Shut up and tighten your scarf!], it’s very snug and the solitary fault is that the effective heater-ventilator has no cockpit control over temperature. That’s done at the rear of the cylinder head, by a miniature water faucet.”
How quaint.
Other Mark II Mechanicals. R&T identified “enlarged intake valves, longer exhaust valve opening and higher compression to boost SAE horsepower rating from 48 to 50; close-ratio gears, formerly optional, are now standard.”
“The only fault,” R&T reminisced, “also typical of BMC transmissions, was that at a standstill, 1st gear could sometimes be engaged only by previously selecting 2nd. Whether the from-new ease of shifting will be typical of all Sprite II’s is a matter of hope….”
Tempered Ferocity. “Low gear,” R&T reported, “is very noisy at full throttle, but the other gears are quiet. The ring and pinion had an oscillating noise on the over-run but were silent under power. The exhaust note, with its tempered ferocity, will warm the heart of any enthusiast.”
R&T’s 1961 Conclusion: “… our closing remarks in the previous test [the Bugeye’s] seem more pertinent than ever: ‘Despite a few obvious faults, it will be popular. It offers more fun per dollar than anything we have driven for a long time.”
And Today. Kim Reynold’s fun car is a Bugeye; Doug Kott only recently sold his beautifully restored Mark II. “Ask the man who owns/owned one….” ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024