Why oh why???

This will take a while, but should be the longest post I put up. As most will know, I have always enjoyed tinkering with soft top cars and was stupid enough to own 2 Triumph Spitfire. ..or money pits, as others have called them.

Due to work and other commitments, I have avoided these cars for a while, but recently returned to the idea of enjoying open top driving. I always thought Caterham cars were way out of my budget, until they produced the Suzuki engined 160. This re-ignited my ideas for a sporty car. The more I looked into the Caterham, the more enthusiastic I became. However, an ill fated trip to Brands Hatch for a kit car day made me realise that the car is impractical as a day to day car. There’s no boot, and you need to be very friendly with your passenger, whilst needing to be a contortionist to get in and out. I am too old for that…and so is my passenger apparently. However, she then went out and bought a Peugeot convertible and we were both re convinced that wind in the hair is still an invigorating drive

As a friend was in the latter stages of sorting out the paperwork for purchasing a Cobra, I looked into a more conventional build. On his recommendation and whilst on holiday I read a Complete Kit Car magazine and found the right car, completely by accident. As the title of this blog suggests, that was the Healy Enigma,  which has only been around for a few years.

A phone call to Martin Williamson of Healy Designs (for over an hour) gave a great insight into how, when and why the Enigma came into  existence and Martin’s passion for classic cars and kit cars.

On 13th Feb 2015 we drove all the way from Wiltshire to Norfolk to meet Martin (it was closer than the other option of Tyneside) and look at his Mk1 and Mk3 cars and to also see what the Mk  2 kit looks like on delivery. This gave me the full sense of what Martin is trying to achieve and just what the car can be like.

Knowing all the details behind the cars, I finally made the decision  that this is the car for me and that the Mk 2 is the right model for the UK. It is the most cost effective variant and seems to be the most versatile version. It is also the right size to fit in my garage whilst being worked on.

So began the search for a donor car. Using the Coparts site and good old e-bay there are many different choices,  but not the late Mk 2.5 MX5 that I really would have liked. After several weeks of administration and searching, last week we went to Westbury to look at a side impact damaged 02 MX5 with very low mileage and I decided to bid on it.

Within 3 days,  Westbury were showing 4 Mk 2 cars and I had been outbid on the first car. On auction day, the work computer was set up and off I went. I missed the first 2 cars as they went for too much. However car number 3 would not evade me and I am now the owner of a 2001 MX5 and ready to go.

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