After putting details of WXM 924 onto the website (obtained from the W&P company archives), we were contacted by Gary Lazarus of the Midget and Sprite Club who has set up a photographic register of Sprites and recognised the registration number. He put us in contact with Bob Kemp of the Austin Healey Club, who has owned the car since in 1972. Bob has been the registrar of the club's Sprite register for some considerable time, but had not been able to find out anything about the early history of his car, so was delighted to find out about WXM's past in 1962 and its likely connection directly with Williams and Pritchard.

When he bought the car he paid very little for it, due to its condition. The vendor was a gentleman in a wealthy part of London, but who unfortunately wasn't a Mr Williams! Bob has tried tracing early ownership records back, but they have not been kept at the local county registry. At the time not appreciating the future importance of a Sebring front, let alone that it would have been one of the very early ones that came out of the mould right at the beginning of production contemporaneously with the Sprinzel fronts, it was unceremoniously disposed of. The Sebring GRP hardtop had already gone walkies, and the car had been resprayed bronze yellow. When Bob embarked on stripping the car down and found some interesting modifications including some Sprinzel parts, which he has retained in his attic. Their discovery is consistent with W&P's involvement with Sprinzel at that time and the likelihood of a young man's spending habits when surrounded by race cars at his father's works. Most interestingly, Bob was able to identify the car as the correct colour for the Williams car which was not obvious from the original 1962 black and white pictures.

Bob rebuilt the car back to standard frogeye bodywork, and indeed the car has been through several rebuilds since then, currently sitting in a Brian Archer bodyshell. Now he knows its history, maybe Bob will be tempted to find a white Sebring hardtop and put an Archer's replica Sebring front on WXM next time around!

We hope to have some comments from Bob shortly, and are very grateful to him for sharing his original photos from 1972. If you can expand his knowledge on WXM any further, please get in touch.