You could say that the car was as cute as a bug’s ear, but its bug-eyes gave it the indelible icon that has stayed with us for nearly 50 years. 
The Austin-Healey Sprite wasn’t the first car that Donald Mitchell Healey built, nor was it the best, but, due to its appealingly affordable price and its so-cute-you-want-to-cuddle-it visage, the Sprite is the Healey car that has the most universal charm.
Indifferent spirit
Healey’s saga was already moving into its third act when the Sprite was presented in 1958. DMH, as he liked to be called, was born in 1898 in Perranporth, Cornwall, the son of a shopkeeper who finally became a land developer. Like Herbert Austin and Henry Royce before him, the young Healey became enamored of tools, machinery and the most infant industry of the day, aviation. He left school to join Sopwith and within months, the outbreak of World War I encouraged Healey to enlist in the Royal Flying Corps. Immediately, he shifted from mechanic to aviator, but his short flying career ended when he crashed in 1916. Mustered out of the service soon after, he returned home to Cornwall where he involved himself in two other fledgling industries: automobiles and radios. Read more . . .
to the breaking point by more than a half decade of armed conflict that left resources constricted, factories in rubble, and the labor force testy to get theirs after so many years of sacrifice.
Frankly, the 1966-76 Interceptor does bear more than a slight similarity to the ’65 Plymouth Barracuda, most notably in the mammoth curved rear windscreen, and the resemblance doesn’t simply stop there. However, equating an Interceptor with a Barracuda is like equating a Chevrolet Camaro with a Ferrari Daytona. Sure, the two cars share a certain sweep of line, but they’re not precisely the same thing now, are they?