Tonight I read with some amusement another post lamenting the "primitive"
Lucas electrical systems used in our beloved Sprites and Midgets. What most
of our resident Lucas bashers seem to forget is that these electrical
systems were designed to a price - a very, very low price. Donald Healey
and BMC set out to build a "cheap" sports car that would be priced below
everything else on the market at the time. And Lucas gave them what they
asked for. Lucas could very well have designed a high quality system, but
not at the price that BMC was willing to pay. Headlight relays could have
been employed (as well as a bunch of other stuff), but it would have driven
the price up.
I remember reading somewhere a comment from Geoffrey Healey (I believe) that
he thought it was great that people were still driving these cars and
modifying them to make them faster, safer, more reliable, and so on. So if
you need relays to support brighter headlights go ahead and install them!
Mr. Healey will be pleased.
I also remember reading somewhere 35 or so years ago that the average
British car of the 50's and 60's was designed with a life expectancy of
40,000 miles. I'm sure that Mr. Healey and BMC never imagined in their
wildest dreams that a bunch of us loons would still be driving, modifying,
racing, etc., etc. these cheap little cars 40+ years later. Just goes to
show you how brilliant their original design was.
Rick
'59 & '61 Sprites
PS - I don't remember seeing headlight relays on ANY of the 50's or early
60's Detroit iron that I've owned. :-)
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