Yeah, those big Healeys were great things... but ground clearance was a problem!

The strangest thing is that in competition, their most successful outings were in rallies!

But BMC was like that, start with a lemon, pour boundless energy into it and turn it into something sweeter that still gives off the aura of a lemon.

Did you know they made alloy heads for them? These engines started life with a simple head with a cast-in log manifold (like early Falcons) and twin ports on those to take either a single downdraught on a bolt-on manifold or twin SUs.

Then when they put them in Healeys, they built a 12-port iron head, but they were still 2639cc. They were enlarged to 2915 (is that right? 177.7ci, I recall) in the sedans late in '59 and Healeys then got them in this size and introduced the '3000'...

One very rapid one in our road racing circles here was out to about 3.3-litres and winning everything. The owner then bought an alloy head and fitted it, dynoed it and found it was short 20hp compared to the iron head.

The driver dropped his bundle when he heard this. Despondent, he was encouraged to try it at Warwick Farm... remembering that this had a 60lb or so weight saving high up at the front of the car. He improved his lap times by nearly two seconds!

Contrary to a lot of popular belief, this engine, the C-series, was not a truck engine. In fact, they were only ever used in the following cars:

Austin A90 six
Austin A95 and A105
Morris Isis
Wolseley 6/90
Riley Two Point Six
Austin-Healey 100/6

...and in 2.9 litre form:

Austin A99 and A110
Wolseley 6/99 and 6/110
Austin-Healey 3000
Princess Vanden Plas 3-litre

They were related, I believe, to the 7-main bearing unit used in the MG C and the Austin 3-litre Deluxe (with lengthened front and rear on Austin 1800 bodyshell... and front engine/rear wheel drive).

This latter engine was, however, a disaster. There are some who've seen it (I never have, strangely) who say that it's more like the Austin Freeway engine we had here in Australia.

This was a 2.4-litre 6-cyl version of the B-series as used in MG A etc. Maybe it was a 6-cyl version of the 5-bearing MG B engine stretched yet further to get the capacity? Frankly, I don't think so... but I'm open to new information any time.