It’s NOT an Austin 3000. It never was. Leonard Lord would be the first to refuse that name, and Donald Healey is rolling in his grave.
“Austin-Healey was a British sports car maker established in 1952 through a joint venture between the Austin Motor Company (a division of the British Motor Corporation) and the Donald Healey Motor Company, a renowned automotive engineering and design firm.”
The deal was made on a handshake between Donald Healey and Leonard Lord at the 1952 Earls Court Motor Show, where Donald Healey exhibited a one-off prototype of a car designed, engineered, and built at his factory in Warwick, and using the Austin A90 powertrain and modified suspension.
Anyone who has even the very slightest knowledge of the brand will always use the abbreviated name “Healey”, not “Austin”. Referring to any of the Austin-Healey models as an “Austin” is proof of a complete absence of knowledge about the facts of the automobiles. During the entire production from 1952 to 1967, neither company ever claimed sole ownership or represented the vehicle as anything other than a joint venture between Healey and BMC.