The
images and text below offer a short chronicle of the restoration of AHX14
by it's owner Blair L Harber of St. Davids Ontario Canada. It is
fitting to acknowledge the assistance offered by both Bill Wood
and Richard Chrysler during the course of the restoration. Bill
stayed in touch all through the restoration and Richard was involved to
overview and directly help in the assembly stage to complete the car on
time with the highest regard for originality.
Two other very important people are Mike Lewis who operates M&G Restorations (Near Toronto) in Blair's home province of Ontario, Canada as well as John Smyth of Heritage Coach Trimming, in Brampton, Ontario. Mike began as an apprentice in panel beating in the UK, and worked for the company that supplied alloy bodies to AC Cars from 1956 to 1965 when he came to Canada to continue his trade. All of the original panels of AHX14 were repaired by Mike. Without his exceptional skills, AHX-14 would have been another Healey Blue BN1. After Mike was finished, Blair put 150 net hours of wet sanding all of the body panels to take them from 220 to 600 grit in order to remove all file marks, scratches and gouges, after which the polishing was done, an even more labor intensive process!
John Smyth is originally from Scotland, and did an excellent interior restoration and made sure that the project was completed on time to attend Conclave 2000 at Indianapolis, Indiana in July, 2000. Jim Sebert of Sebert Motors rebuilt the restored/modified engine, which is the original for the car.
In addition, Quality Restoration Services (QRS) of St.Catharines Ontario, Mike Salter, Martin MacGregor, Martin Jansen and many others contributed towards this restoration. Special thanks are also given to Blair's right hand helper, Lou Cardilli of Fort Erie, Ontario; a very talented Italian who knows an awful lot about putting together British cars.
