Haven't driven a BN1, and only put a few miles on our BN2/100M but can tell
it's more nimble than my BJ8. However, I
think the BJ8 is a better touring car because, let's face it, we probably spend
80+% of the time on freeways and
straight-as-a-section-line highways, and the big 6 is sweet music for the long,
straight (boring) roads, and serviceable
on the twisties. The 3.54 diff helps a lot, too.
Bob
On 7/6/2014 12:57 AM, Larry Varley wrote:
> I think it's time that the list had a healthy debate, and some fun. I would
> propose that the only real Austin Healey
> was the BN1, designed by Donald Healey and Gerry Coker. Everything after that
> was BMC, who never made a decent car
> after the 50's, just using what they had to keep producing the cars, that
> were for some part good ideas, but bad
> design. The mini was a great idea, but mix the gearbox oil with the engine?
> Oh dear. The BN2 with a extra gear in a
> much heavier gearbox that really added no extra performance, then the 100-6
> with that horribly heavy engine and no
> more grunt. Why would anyone do that, and just ruin the balance of the car?
> Ok after that they added the 12 port head
> to it, but the sixes at their best are really ponderous in the steering
> department relative to the BN1, which is a
> nibble well balance car. I'm going so far as to use an alloy block in my BT7
> to turn it back into a descend handling
> car and restore the weight balance. BMC basically self destructed, while the
> rest of the world moved forward, what a
> shame.
> Cheers
> Larry Varley
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
--
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Bob Spidell San Jose, CA bspidell@comcast.net
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