Candy has arrived at her new home in Maryland, and here’s Gary in his new Bugeye (our 324th) and he looks marvelous!
Candy makes more than kids happy this Halloween time!
Hot 1275-powered and restored 1960 Bugeye Sprite for sale called “Spice !”
NOW SOLD to Dave from Oklahoma! Congratulations for grabbing our 337th Bugeye sold!!! A great one!
Check out the new driving video of Spice!
This is a great car that we have just “spiced-up” with new chrome wire wheels and new 155 tires. There were previously two temp gauges on the car, one in the head and one in the radiator. You might notice the late model gauge supplemental gauge in the video but we have now removed that now, because it never looked right, and was unnecessary.
AN5L 49195 is a 1960 Bugeye built late in 1960 and first titled in 1961. We call this one “Spice,” because it is painted in a slightly more Cinnamon shade of the original cherry red that came new on a Frogeye. This is a very good car, with an excellent paint job and a lot of nice upgrades, like a 1275 engine with ribbed case four speed transmission, front disk brakes and wire wheels.
I have driven the car a bit and it is a delight to drive, after a complete restoration about five years ago with not a lot of miles since. The car is quick, courtesy of the 1275 engine and exhaust header, to help her breathe. The wire wheels look great!
The paint is excellent and shines quite beautifully. The interior still looks new. The luggage rack allows you to carry an overnight bag, or a golf back or a folding bicycle, for that matter. The wood steering wheel is a nice upgrade.
A great top is included, see the photo album for pix. The tonneau is also nice, but the edges are a bit frayed. We have new ones available in deep red if you would prefer.
There is no heater… I got the car from the Southwest where no cabin heat was needed. The fresh air snorkel is fed directly into the fresh air inlet in front of the battery. We can put in a heater assembly and blower if the new owner needs heat for their particular location. Original side curtains are included, but they will need to be restored if you ever need to mount them.
The underside is very solid with no floor rust! 55,942 miles are shown but actual mileage is unknown.
If you are looking for a nice restored Sprite, this is one to seriously consider! As with most of the cars we sell, we can modify Spice as much or as little as you desire! Call or email if you are interested and we can discuss a five-speed conversion and any other custom features you might like us to add to the car before we send it to your door! Perhaps you would like the front cockpit trim covered with vinyl? We can do that too!
Rotary powered Bugeye Sprite screamer!
Here’s one of the more radical Bugeyes we’ve seen yet! This car has been completely transformed into a purpose-built racer for SCCA Solo 2. I don’t have the records-it’s not our car, it’s here for us to make it work once again-so I don’t know how it performed. But the build is impeccable, with dozens of modifications. The suspension and rear end bear little resemblance to an original Bugeye. And the rotary engine is of course an amazing compact yet powerful upgrade!
Take a good look at the underside pictures… the builder cut out a space for the new exhaust and ran it through the passenger seat area, and built a custom braced box to allow this modification without compromising frame strength. There are numerous custom features.
The new owner has wanted to make this a street legal car… but it is so dedicated to speed and handling, I am not sure that will be possible, and it would seem to be smartest to keep this machine a dedicated racer.
We’ll get this rocket running in the coming weeks, once we change the master cylinders and fuel pump, to get all the systems operational again. Stand by for great driving video!
What would your tailor-made Bugeye look like?
“Candy” a beautiful, customized 1958 Bugeye headed to Maryland “Liberty” classic-racer-style customized Bugeye headed to Montana
It is forever interesting for us to build such a varied array of Bugeye Sprites. One might not think that there would be so many flavors, and yet it seems to us that each one is completely different.
This week is no exception… check out “Candy,” stunning, elegant and quick, and “Liberty,” more of an old school hotrod. Both are quite special and unique. Both are done to a very high level. And both are representative of what we routinely create in our shop. We look forward to helping you express yourself with your particular Bugeye!
Let us pick up your car anywhere in the USA and modify it, or build you your own! Call or email if interested!
Looking for a winter project?
If you’re looking for a winter project, then look no more! We have our project Bugeye posted on ebay this week. Click here to take a look, bidding starts at just $1,295!
Check out this link for more info about this project!
Sloppy shoes
This is one of the sloppier pair of rear brake shoes we have seen. The shoes shown have been well-coated with differential oil, and obviously, are not going to do much braking in this condition. New shoes, new axle seals, gaskets and an o ring are in order. We have a wet brake rehab kit available in our catalog to address this common problem.
This is one of the most routine failures we have seen on Spridgets, it seems like about 75% of the cars that come through our shop have this issue, not always as ugly as this one, but often leaking. If you are unfamiliar, axle are sandwiched over the rear hub and differential oil often leaks out of this union and ruins the rear brake shoes.
So how do you minimize the likelihood of this leak recurring?
We use the correct gasket and o-ring, a new seal and we make sure the axle fits flat with the hub so that there are good mating surfaces. The secret sauce we add is gasket shellac, to help fill any voids in the gasket. We don’t recommend RTV/silicone/thick sealant because it seems to add too much material, and can actually make leaks more likely to recur.
I bet there are several dozen opinions out there about how to do this best, but whatever it takes to keep the faces sealed is OK by us. We’ll keep using the shellac unless we find that it stops working.
One other suggestion… lug nuts help hold this whole sandwich together, so when you remove a wheel you should put a lug nut back on opposite the drum screw to help hold the stack together during service. Otherwise, the oil can start to run out, thus damaging the gasket and inviting leaks later.
Rigid Arms
One of the other chronic maintenance needs on early Sprites is the radius arm bushings. These routinely fail. I fear that rubber ain’t what it used to be and so we seem to change these as often as axle seals (as shown in the post above).
One chronic source of failure is tightening these in the air and then lowering your car such that the bushings experience high torque loads and can perish prematurely.
But even when tightened on the ground, the rubber seems to decay a lot faster than we would like.
Over the years, we have seen creative solutions. This one shown is a sold plastic arm that had to be build out of frustration, since it looks like it would last forever. A more elegant but similarly rigid solution is a heim jointed adjustable and rigid steel arm. These will also last forever, but I notice an immediate harsh ride quality as a result and we therefore remove these immediately.
Quarter elliptical Sprites require all the rubber damping they can get to provide some level of nominal comfort demanded by modern customers. In the 70s we expected less. Now that we have all aged (just a little bit), a tad of comfort is critical, otherwise people tend to leave their Sprites in the garage and take something else.
If your rear axle is clunking on forward to reverse transitions, you need new radius arm bushings. Check them next time you are in your rear wheel arches, and see if they are cracked or torn. We have rubber bushings you can press in, or, if you prefer to just put in the complete arm with the new bushings pre-loaded, we sell those too!
Newest Bugeyeguy build headed for Reno
Here’s TJ’s Bugeye before departure for Reno, Nevada. This car is one of the best we have ever built, and I thought you would like the videos we made to demonstrate why we think so!
Don’t be an animal
Axles don’t break very often. Of course if yours breaks, you never forget it, and you think that they all must break, but the reality is that we have had very few broken axles during the past 15 years. Of course if you drive like an animal you could break your axle on your first drive but we always encourage people to be gentle with these old cars and that seems to work. I broke my last axle in about 1982, so now that most of us a little older and the animal has matured a bit, by design, our demographic is less apt to brake axles.
That said, Ken called this week to say his gearbox broke and his car wouldn’t move and that he needed a new transmission. After discussion, it was clear that he had broken an axle. Sadly, you need to be towed home anytime this happens. Ken was so happy with our diagnosis over the phone that he sent us this picture of his parts, which demonstrates exactly how they usually break. The outer tip that protrudes into the differential will often torque off of the axle shaft. Once an axle is severed, you can no longer send power to the wheel, and you are all done. And it can often be quite difficult to get the broken piece out of the rear end.
So don’t be an animal.
1275 Shelby-esque Bugeye screamer for sale-New Video!
NOW SOLD! Congrats to the great couple who have adopted this car and given our 345th Bugeye a happy new home!
Meet “Royal” (AN5L 40317), a striking Bugeye with Shelby graphics. This is a solid Sprite which was owned for the past seven years by a Healey lover in the Boston area, who kept the car in great care. The car only covered about 250 miles during his stewardship.
The car has a striking paint job that still looks very fresh. The stripes are properly laid down, sealed under the very sharp clear-coat finish. The flip forward nose kit makes engine access a breeze.
The car has tons of power and a nice exhaust note. The 1275 engine is fed by a side draft Weber, which is working quite well.
The car also has a cut off switch on the dash, so you can remove the red key to the right side of the dash, which kills all electric power if you park the car for an extended period, or can be used for anti-theft. A rear tube shock conversion was also fit to replace the rear lever shocks with later tube type dampers.
There is (an unconventional) red starter push button on the dash to engage the starter. It works just fine. The new owner can decide to keep this perfectly functional set-up or to have us convert the dashboard back to an original starter pull.
The top is fine but a top bow is needed, and the car hasn’t been used with a top in forever anyway. Tires are from 2002 so they are ready to be retired.
This is a great car, with great wheels and a great look. It’s solid and striking and please give a call or email if you want us to send Royal to your door!
