1958 Austin-Healey “Bugeye” Sprite

In careful hands a Sprite could return 40 mpg—but not many did. Healthy survivors are scarce

The meticulous restoration of the 1958 “Bugeye” Sprite offered here has been the subject of newspaper and magazine articles in the U.S. and the U.K.

“Here’s a new twist to a timeless tale. A group of high school students pool their money to buy a car, it needs some work…but hey, how hard can it be to make an old car run? Sounds like something from the era of ducktails and drive-ins? But here’s the twist: those students are young women, and the car was just a tub and twenty-odd boxes full of rock-hard rubber, rats nests of frayed wire, and hundreds of unlabeled bits!”

DECIDED TO DO IT RIGHT

The first step in the 18-month saga of “Team Sprite” began with the discovery of a three-inch patch of beautiful Cherry Red original paint while stripping away a 25-year-old BRG repaint. At that point, the girls voted to restore the car as closely as possible to the way it rolled off the assembly line, in late October 1958.

The...