Healey Tickford and Elliott (1948 – 1954) Review

The Healey Elliott was designed and engineered by Donald Healey, ex-Triumph technical director. The company had been building his own cars since 1946, and the Elliott saloon was an important move upmarket, being one of the fastest closed four-seater built in the UK at the time. These were thinly disguised racing cars, even if they looked like civilised GT cars.

But it was the Tickford coupe that was the star of the range. it was a further development of the Elliott, and was far cleaner looking and more appealing, even if its competition car roots were further hidden. Dynamically, it lost out to the Elliott, thanks to additional weight and a loss of agility, but instead, it received a proper boot and glass (instead of Perspex) side windows. In the end, it outsold the original by two-to-one proving that Healey’s designs were good enough to warrant the premium. However, it proved to be the end of the line - with Donald Healey and Leonard Lord carving out the highly lucrative Austin-Healey between them.