Patrick,
Pat Moss had a London taxi low ratio back axle put in her Healey (URX 727)
for the 1960 Liege-Rome-Liege rally.
This cut the top speed from 120/130 mph to about 80 mph in direct top gear
with a top crusing of only 70 mph, but the acceleration was fantastic.
There is a good section in Peter Browning's book - The Works Big Healeys,
page 80/81
The Liege-Rome-Liege Rally was one of the toughest rallies of its time and
crews and cars were scheduled to last for 96 hours without a stop.
Pat Moss and her co-driver/navigator Ann Wisdom won this Rally with Pat
driving for 90 out of the 96 hours. Out of 81 starters only 13 survived to
finish with three Austin Healeys amoungst the 13.
As Peter Browning writes " Truly it was the marque's finest hour".
Peter Hunt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Quinn, Patrick" <Patrick.Quinn@det.nsw.edu.au>
To: "Peter Svilans" <peter.svilans@rogers.com>; <healeys@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 11:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Healeys] Tulips and other obscure terms
> G'day
>
> Bloody Hell! I go away for a few days and everyone goes completely off
> the rails.
>
> Except for Peter and Joe!!!!
>
> There was and never has been any such thing as a Tulip engine. There was
> a Rally called the Tulip Rally where the Austin-Healeys prepared by the
> MG factory at Abingdon performed very well.
>
> Why? Because the cars were fitted with a special set of gear ratios that
> provided improved acceleration out of corners. The ratios have gone down
> in Austin-Healey lore as Tulip ratios or gears. Now I can't recall if it
> was the same rally, but there was one where Pat Moss had a taxi diff
> ratio fitted as well. This gave her car a top speed of around 90mph, but
> it got there very quickly.
>
> Hoo Roo
>
> Patrick Quinn
> Sydney, Australia
> **********************************************************************
_______________________________________________
Support Team.Net http://www.team.net/donate.html
Healeys@autox.team.net
http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/healeys
http://www.team.net/archive
|