Page 12 - The Origin of the Species

THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES
12
The three Special Test Cars built in 1953, with the exception of SPL 227B that
had been used to break several endurance speed records in Bonneville, received
most of these additional modifications over the course of the following year,
bringing them to the same performance standard as the 1954 Special Test Cars.
Muddied Waters
According to the race history prepared for SPL 224B (NOJ 391) that was
posted to support the vehicle’s sale at Hyman Ltd., the progenitor of the Special
Test Car line was sent to Florida to compete at the 12 Hours of Sebring in March
1954. Unfortunately, a great deal of controversy exists surrounding the veracity
of this claim. In a detailed table that Geoffrey Healey prepared in the late 1970s
(hereinafter referred to as the “GCH Table”) to detail the history and development
of the Special Test Cars and 100S examples, he credits SPL 224B (NOJ 391) with
a single appearance at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1956, with no outings indicated
for this chassis at the 1954 and 1955 editions of the race.
Joe Jarick, a self-proclaimed expert on the 100S and an individual once
described by Reid Trummel, editor of Healey Marque and former president of the
Austin-Healey Club of America, as a “pompous, self-serving, self-important ass”
with numerous documented instances of inconsistent scholarship has stated that
the vehicle that competed at Sebring in 1954 was SPL 226B (NOJ 393) and not
SPL 224B (NOJ 391). In a confidential report prepared in advance of SPL 226B’s
sale in 2011, Jarick stated: “I am confident ‘NOJ 393’ was the 1954 Sebring entry.
Additional to the DHMCo documentation [which he does not reveal or recite
from], close scrutiny of the photographic evidence of the entries for Sebring and
SPL 227B and SPL 261
BN set several land speed
records on the Bonneville Salt
Flats including the latter’s
impressive 192.62 mph
in 1954. (The Donald Healey
Collection)