I thought a reminder concerning the January meeting might be appreciated during the holiday rush.  On January 10th two important events will occur.  First, will be a technical session starting at 10:00 AM at John and Judy Carter’s home located at 16173-SW DeKald St, Tigard, OR.  Directions are available elsewhere on the website under the “Events”.  The second event will be the January business meeting starting at 1:00 PM at Max’s Brew Pub located at 12582-SW Main St in downtown Tigard.  Directions are below and there is ample off-street parking behind the pub.

The club members have an important decision to make in the first month or two of 2009 regarding the 2010 Rendezvous, specifically, selection of the site for the meet.  In support of this decision pertinent information will be presented and discussed at the the January meeting.  First, will be a Power Point presentation prepared for the club by Mr. Alan Smiles, Executive Director of the Seaside Chamber of Commerce.  Next will be two presentations concerning Eugene.  Ms Sue Harshbarger of Convention & Visitors Assoc. of Lane County (CVALCO) will propose Eugene as the venue for our Rendezvous.  Then, Mr Dan Miller, Director of Corporate Sales at the Valley River Inn in Eugene will provide a briefing on the merits and offerings of his establishment as a potential headquarters for the 2010 event.

Directions from Carter’s to Max’s Pub – From Carter’s home return to Bull Mtn Road and turn right.  Head easterly on Bull Mtn to HWY 99 South, turn left.  Drive north to Main St in Downtown Tigard.  (Main St is the last intersection before the bridge crossing over the RxR tracks.)  Turn right at the light onto Main St.  Max’s Brew Pub is about one block ahead on you right.  If you pass A-Boy Electric and Plumbing Supply on Main you’ve gone too far.  A drive way to the parking lot is along the bank of Fanno Creek and alongside the Pub building wall.

The day couldn’t have been better. We had a little rain, but that was the only downside. At the Eastmoreland Golf Course our dining room was beautifully bedecked with Christmas decorations, the room was full of happy AHCO members enjoying one another’s company. The auction tables were laden with more items than we’ve ever had before. After two rounds of loading the silent auction tables and members winning their desired items it was time for the delicious brunch.

The food was absolutely perfect and there was lots of it. There weren’t enough good things to say about the staff. They were absolutely stellar.

Then, it was time to get down to the serious business of the oral auction. Tom went through the items as quickly as possible and at the end of the afternoon we had an additional $4005.25 in the Club Charity coffers. One member noted that, “at a time when our economy is so terrible, we earned more than any other year in our history.” This is a tremendous statement of the commitment our Club members have for this very important aspect of of our Club.

I’d like to express my gratefulness to each and every one of our corporate donors as well as each member of our Club who donated items to the auction or made purchases. In addition, I thank each member of the Charity Team for all their work during this past year. It is truly a group effort and this year, thanks to your generousity, we’ll be able to help more of the less fortunate than ever before.

Love and Peace~
Skip

Press Release
By Patrick Quinn, Sydney, Australia

Most Austin-Healey owners would be well aware of the heritage that our cars enjoy. We have read about the successes of the marque in such iconic events as Le Mans, Sebring and the Liege-Rome-Liege. Many of us would also know of the successes that Donald Healey himself had on the salt flats of Bonneville from 1953 to 1956.

In what will no doubt be the most exciting event in modern Austin-Healey history, two very special Austin-Healey 100s reconstructed in Australia, are set to return to the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2009.

In 1953 the Donald Healey Motor Company built a special Austin-Healey 100 with the aim of setting both high speed as well as endurance records. This car, looking not too dissimilar to a standard 100 was driven by Donald Healey himself, George Eyston, Carroll Shelby, Mort Goodall and Roy Jackson Moore.

The following year they went back, more ambitious than before. Not only did they return with the more developed Endurance car from the year before, but also a special Streamliner that was based on a standard chassis, but with its body fitted with an extended nose and tail plus a stabilising fin.

The endurance car went on to bag a whole raft of long-distance records from 200km to 5,000km and 1 to 24 hours, while the Streamliner, with Donald Healey at the wheel achieved a high of 192.74 mph.

While the two cars were brought back to England, the Streamliner returned to Bonneville in 1956 with further modifications and 100-Six power where it was even more successful.

Both eventually succumbed to the ravages of the salt; however bits and pieces were known to survive. Decades later Dutch Austin-Healey enthusiast Wiet Huidekoper in a world wide search located many of these actual parts. Wiet formed a plan together with well known Australian Austin-Healey expert Steve Pike of reconstructing the cars and reliving the events of 1954 on the Bonneville salt.

Steve is a long term Austin-Healey enthusiast and along with his team at Marsh Classic Restorations has been restoring cars of the marque since the 1970s and enjoys a worldwide reputation as the expert on the 100S.

With access to Geoff Healey’s personal records and design drawings as well as the historic parts both cars are nearing completion and the target is to debut the endurance car in March 2009 at the Historic races at Phillip Island, Australia. The body/chassis of the Streamliner has been completed and from the attached photos looks just stunning. As originally, both cars will have early versions of the 100S engines. The Endurance car’s highly tuned engine will have an original “angle-faced head” and will be stopped by an early version of the smaller twin-piston brake callipers that were later developed for the 100S production racers. As originally the Streamliner will be supercharged and fitted with a variant of the original David Brown 5-speed gearbox. As the two cars have been reconstructed around the remains of what has been left, the souls of the 1954 cars have been brought back to life.

The team behind this most exciting Austin-Healey venture have set-up a website so that Austin-Healey enthusiasts around the world can keep across the events as they occur.

The site address is:- www.healeysreturntobonneville.com

The history of the Austin Healey is replete with many famous names and records from European rallies.  The cars were driven hard and made a name for themselves and for Donald.  I found  a short YouTube clip of a Healey being pushed pretty hard in a rally somewhere.  The sounds will warm your heart on a cold winter night and the way the Healey handles a couple of corners will make your heart skip a couple of beats.

I have slowly been posting back issues of Healey Northwest and will continue to post issues  until I have all of the old issues up.  If you want an easy way to see or search those back issues you can use Google.

To list the back issues click this link. It does a google search on:

“Healey Northwest” site:issuu.com

which simple means look for Healey Northwest at the  web site issuu.com.

You can also list the issues by searching at issuu.com.

The advantage of using google is that you can add  search words and search inside the newsletters.  Issuu doesn’t search the actual contents of the newsletters.  Issuu does show you the cover pages of all the old issues, which google doesn’t.

At any rate it is fun to look back and see what the club has done in the past

Mark Schneider and Richard Mayor

Mark has owned his Healey forever. The car has been a constant companion, a source of many parking lot discussions, and a reliable means of transport. As the vehicle sits in our garage today the odometer reads 118,541 miles. This fact coupled with a second fact, i.e., the engine and transmission have never been out of the car for rebuild completely astounds Richard Mayor. Richard believes that the engine must be tired, that rings are suffer blow by, and valves fail to seat properly. The best way to find out is to conduct a couple of standard engine tests. Specifically, a compression check and a leak down test. Mark’s Healey car will serve as the guinea pig for the tests during a technical session on Valentine’s Day.

The compression test requires removal of the spark plugs and measuring the ability of each piston to compress the cylinder’s volume of air and fuel. The leak down test pressurizes each cylinder with air and the measures the ability of the rings and valves to sustain the pressure over time. Richard’s hypothesis is that Mark’s engine will sound like a bad air mattress with air leaking out of valves or around piston rings. The tests require specialized equipment. The interpretation of the results require knowledge and experience. From many years of racing Austin Healeys Richard Mayor has both. Mark may learn that he is the banker for the final outcome of the tests. Join us and cheer on Richard or Mark, your choice.

We will conduct these tests as a technical session as part of the February club meeting. Join Richard, Mark, and Mark’s Healey in Richard’s garage on Saturday February 14, 2009. Richard’s home and garage are located at 1511 – SW Broadway Drive . The technical session will begin at 10:30 AM and run until 12:30 PM. Richard’s garage is a tribute to the ultimate “car guy”. However, please make note that we will be in the garage for the entire session. Therefore, comfortable shoes and a warm jacket will be the uniform of the day.

After the technical session the formal February business meeting of the Austin Healey Club of Oregon will take place at the Buffalo Gap Saloon & Eatery located at 6835 – SW Macadam Ave. The business meeting and lunch will begin at 1:00 PM and continue until we are done.

A map to Richard’s address and to the Buffalo Gap is shown below. Click the link below the map and driving directions to the Buffalo Gap will appear. Richard’s address is indicated by the Green pointer “A”, the Buffalo Gap is found at green point “B”.

If you get lost on your way call Mark Schneider, 503-706-5304 (cell).

View Larger Map

Another Healey racing video….