The following pages showcase some of the colourful members that make up the Club’s member base.
Read about the people, their cars and the things that they get up to in them.
Simon Hughes & Della Watson (Simon is Life Member no. 14)
Current Car: MK IIA Austin Healey Sprite Years of Membership: 22 I first joined the AHSDC in 1987 as an 18 year old, after an old school mate, Tim Dore told me what a great weekend he had spent at Bordertown in SA. He had been with his parents, and all these other people where they had been driving around [...]
Garry Neeman’s MK1 Sprite
In over 40 years of driving, I haven't owned many cars. Started in 1974 with a Valiant VC Regal sedan. A good car but I would advise against buying a car at night time. Turned out the paintwork wasn't so good. This was followed by a Valiant VJ Charger 770 with the 318 V8. Everyone should have at least [...]
Simon and Mandy’s Nigel
As we have a long history of naming and shaming Sprites, when Simon first came home with a bugeye shell I hunted around for a suitable name, which had to be British and preferably connected with a teddy bear. This goes back such a long way I no longer remember why, it’s just a tradition. Previous Sprites have had names [...]
My Sprite(s) – John Fowler (Life Member no. 6)
I bought my ‘61Mark 1 Sprite (HMC 800) on the 31st October 1966, from a B.W. Mulligan of Brighton for $800, and I was the third owner. It was considered an ‘old’ model, but it was in perfect condition and still in its original colour of pale Aintree Green and was fitted with a J & S fastback hard [...]
JS 948: Steve & Jenny Schmidt’s 1958 Austin Healey Sprite Mk.1
Purchased in February 1979 as a shell with a couple of trailer loads of bits, the Bugeye had been extensively modified to house a Holden 6 cylinder grey motor, gearbox and radiator. The transmission tunnel was missing from the handbrake forwards as was the inner footwell sides, chassis cross member, radiator supports and battery box area. The rear guards were [...]