Neil Scott's Lenham LeMans Coupe.

Alex Robertson bought this car, which is based on a Mk3 Sprite, from Mike McGee in late 2009. Alex takes up the story...

"Through most of the 70’s I was very active in the Austin Healey Sprite Drivers Club in Victoria.  I had a number of Spridgets during that time, and was particularly fond of the Lenham coupe which I built in the late 70’s.  I bought the fibreglass Lenham shell from Ray English, and used a damaged Midget which I had bought from Bob Gill as the basis for a seriously quick club car.  I used parts from a previous racing Midget which I had written off at Winton a couple of years before. At the end of 1979, due to an increase in our family, I decided to pull out of competition, and to sell my race car. 

John Shepherdson bought the coupe from me, and he still owns the car today.  It is the orange one on the Lenham Spridget website which John recently set up, after I visited him eighteen months ago.  The Lenham had been off the road for many years, and I wanted to buy it back from John. Instead, he became motivated to return the car to life, and I now challenge him to bring his Lenham to the 2010 Sprite National Challenge at Wakefield Park.

I then began to consider building a new Lenham coupe, until Neville Mansfield told me about one sitting in a farm shed in northern NSW.  A few phone calls later, Nev and I drove down with a trailer on the back of the ute.  We met with the owner Mike McGee near Inverell, and I’m now the owner of my second Lenham coupe.

This Lenham is based on a 1963 Mk 3 Sprite, and was built by Sprite Parts in the 70’s. The car was originally built with a targa top, 7” wide chrome steel wheels, and flairs.  The car hasn’t seen much action in the past 20 or so years, but that is about to change.  I’m going to turn the Lenham into a historic racing group SB car. So far, I have put narrower wheels on the car, and am about to remove the flairs, and alter the targa top back to a full coupe." 

Alex subsequently sold this car to Neil Scott of the NSW Sprite Club. Neil intends stripping the car back and rebuilding it.

Thanks to Alex for the use of his photos and words.

We look forward to following the progress of Neil's rebuild.