By Pete Vack and Jim Sitz
In their new book Nash-Healey, A Grand Alliance, authors John Nikas and Hervé Chevalier bring to light Donald Healey’s 5,000-mile ten-day cross-country journey through America in 1948, driving a new Healey Westland in every conceivable weather situation all the way to Los Angeles.
Hollywood welcomed Donald and Geoffrey Healey, who in turn never missed a photo op. Here is the well-traveled Westland with starlet Barbara Lawrence. Photo from Nash-Healey, A Grand Alliance
Healey and son Geoffrey were amazed at the enthusiasm and knew that he could succeed in selling his cars in the U.S. According to Nikas, “In his retirement in during the 1980s, he would ponder what might have happened had he built sports car in the United States rather than England.” He returned to the UK with many contacts and ideas, but left the appropriately named Westland in California. Jim Sitz picked up the trail from there.