To say TommyRot is over the moon over his new find would be an understatement and he's asked me to add some background over what we in the Austin-Healey community call "Nasty Boys". The name refers to Healeys with an American V8 and supposedly came from a Brit who heard one rumping through the pits at a race and asked his friend, "Isn't that a Nasty Boy?"
They've been called "Poor Man's Cobras" as many used Healeys were treated to the backyard engineering treatment of hot rodders over the years. Truth is, Cobras should probably be called "Rich Man's Healeys" as Shel probably got some of his ideas for the Cobra from his years racing Healeys. In fact, before the Cobra was born, Shel approached Donald Healey and Chevrolet with the intent to turn that combination into his sports car. Both Healey and Chevy turned him down. Healey was building plenty of cars on his own and British Motor Cars wasn't keen on selling any of their production capacity. Meanwhile, Chevy didn't want the competition for the Corvette from a lighter and more powerful foreign car.
If you want to do a deep dive into the subject, you can take a look at an article on Nasty Boy history I wrote for the Austin-Healey Magazine a few years back:
https://bighealey.org/NastyBoy/Issue_8_2016.pdf