Lot details
Registration No: 222 NFC
Chassis No: HBT718135
Mot Expiry: None

This Austin-Healey - a 1962-built and always righthand drive 3000 Mk2 sportscar on steel road wheels with the benefit of the desirable factory hardtop - has some extraordinary provenance, having once been owned by Great Train Robbery mastermind and one of the getaway drivers, Bruce Reynolds.
The potent roadster was first purchased by Bruce Reynolds in 1963, shortly after the infamous train robbery at Cheddington, Bedfordshire, in which he and his gang of hand-picked villains made off with over £2.5 million in untraceable cash from the `Up Special' - the Royal Mail Traveling Post Office that ran between Glasgow and London. It is therefore not insignificant to learn that project boss Reynolds, at the time a career criminal and keen performance car enthusiast, paid for his treat with cash!
It was Reynolds who planned what was to become a headline making and record breaking theft, assembling a gang of fellow desperadoes and rigging the train signals to being the mail train to a halt between Leighton Buzzard and Cheddington. It was there that they decoupled the coaches carrying the cash and forced the train's driver, who was seriously hurt during the heist, to move the valuable part of the train half a mile along the line to a suitably remote location where the gangs vehicles were assembled to carry off their haul. The 20 mailbags crammed full of untraceable banknotes amounted to £2.5 million, a simply huge sum in the early 1960s and the equivalent today of £40 million!
After the robbery, the gang went to ground in nearby Leatherslade Farm, before dividing up the proceeds and going their separate ways. Reynolds went on the run with the help of his £150,000 share and, over the next five years, evaded police in Mexico, Canada and France, before returning to Torquay, where he was eventually apprehended, almost spent out, in 1968. Although sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, he was released in 1978.
In an effort to recoup some of the losses suffered in the robbery, Reynolds Healey 3000 222 NFC was one of the lots auctioned off by the police at `The Great Train Robbery Special Auction Sale' at Measham in February 1969, the original sales certificate authenticating the provenance being amongst the fascinating archive material and documents that accompanies the vehicle in today's auction.
For here is a rare opportunity to acquire a link with one of the most historic crimes of all time in the form of a desirable, utterly traditional and entirely practical to own British sportscar. In current ownership for the past twenty-four years, it is believed that, although the speedo was renewed following April 1980 acquisition, the total mileage for the handsome black roadster with red leather interior, which is claimed still to be largely original, is unlikely to be more than 30,000 miles. The current overall cosmetic and mechanical condition of this historic Austin-Healey is described as excellent.
PLEASE NOTE: We have been contacted by a previous owner of this car who has known it from 1969 until 1981. His letter, which is available for viewing in the history file, suggests that the mileage may be higher at some 50,000 miles and he confirms that, after long storage, the car was repainted and the engine rebuilt by RS Panels, a most respected firm. We therefore no longer warrant the mileage of this sensational car.