Donald Healey
|
Donald Healey CBE |
|
|---|---|
| Born |
Donald Mitchell Healey 3 July 1898 Perranporth, Cornwall, England |
| Died | 13 January 1988 (aged 89) Duchy Hospital, Truro, Cornwall |
| Residence | Cornwall, Warwickshire, Cornwall |
| Education | Newquay College, Cornwall |
| Occupation | Car designer, rally driver |
| Organization | Triumph Motor Co Donald Healey Motor Co Healey Automotive Consultants |
| Known for | Car designs |
| Notable work | Winner Monte Carlo Rally 1931 |
| Spouse(s) | Ivy Maud James |
| Children | Geoffrey, Brian, John |
| Parent(s) | Emma and John Frederick Healey |
| Relatives | brother |
Donald Mitchell Healey CBE (3 July 1898 – 13 January 1988) was a noted English car designer, rally driver and speed record holder.
Born in Perranporth, Cornwall, elder son of Frederick (John Frederick) and Emma Healey (née Mitchell) who at that time ran a general store there, Donald Healey became interested in all things mechanical at an early age, most particularly aircraft. He studied engineering while at Newquay College. When he left his father bought him an expensive apprenticeship with Sopwith Aviation Company in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey and he joined Sopwith in 1914 continuing his engineering studies at Kingston Technical College. Sopwith had sheds at the nearby Brooklands aerodrome and racing circuit. Barely 16 when WW1 started, he volunteered in 1916 (before the end of his apprenticeship) for the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and earned his "wings" as a pilot. He went on night bombing raids and served on anti-Zeppelin patrols and also as a flying instructor. Shot down by British anti-aircraft fire on one of the first night bomber missions of the war, after a further series of crashes he was invalided out of the RFC in November 1917 and spent the rest of the war checking aircraft components for the Air Ministry. After the Armistice he returned to Cornwall, took a correspondence course in automobile engineering and opened the first garage in Perranporth in 1920.
Donald Healey married Ivy Maud James (she died in 1980) on 21 October 1921 and they had three sons.
Healey found rally driving and motor racing more interesting than his garage and its car hire business and used the garage to prepare cars for competition. He first entered the Monte Carlo Rally in 1929 driving a Triumph 7 but in 1931 Donald Healey won the Monte Carlo Rally driving a 4½-litre Invicta and was 2nd overall the next year. Now in demand as a competition driver he sold the garage business, moved to the Midlands to work for Riley but soon moved to the Triumph Motor Company as experimental manager. The next year he was made technical director and responsible for the design of all Triumph cars. He created the Triumph Southern Cross and then the Triumph Dolomite 8 straight-eight sports car in 1935 following his class win, and 3rd overall, in the 1934 Monte Carlo Rally in a Triumph Gloria of his own design —the previous year a train demolished their Dolomite on a foggy level crossing miraculously saving Healey and his co-driver. Triumph went into liquidation in 1939 but Healey remained on the premises as works manager for H M Hobson making aircraft engine carburettors for the Ministry of Supply. Later in the war he worked with Humber on armoured cars. Donald Healey was keen to begin making his own cars, planning post-war sports cars with colleague and chassis specialist Achille Sampietro.
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