AMGBA Editor and New

MGB: the First 50 years of Immortality
by Peter Egan, from Road & Track

While driving to the bookstore last night and discussing how to best celebrate my upcoming 64th birthday, Barb suddenly turned to me and said, "isn't there a Beatles song called When I'm Sixty-Four?"

Time does slip away, as I was reminded for a second time that night when we walked into the bookstore. I headed over to the magazine rack and immediately noticed a British car magazine with a cover blurb that said, "The MGB Turns 50!" Naturally, I had to buy a copy to add to my fairly sizable bookshelf of MGB lore - which includes several grease-stained shop manuals.

I've owned three of these cars, you see, and spent a couple of years in the early '90s doing a full restoration on a 1973 roadster in British Racing Green with a tan interior. I bought this car from Patti Baron, wife of R&T Design Director Richard M. Baron, just before Barb and I moved back to Wisconsin in 1990.

I drove this car, trouble-free, for about two years before I foolishly sold it to buy an 18 foot trailer for my Reynard Formula Continental. The sad truth is, I'd owned two other MGBs before this one - 1970 and 1971 models - and sold them both to defray the cost of racing.

Thought the MGB came out in 1962, I didn't actually get a ride in one until 1968. I had a summer factory job and met a fellow worker named Pete Shannon who had an MGB. He gave me a short ride in the car, and I was quite impressed. Ride quality in the MGB was good, too and it seemed to handle well, as it sat lower than the MGA.

The MG was a model I grew to respect for being well built and well engineered. Which is not to say the car didn't have a few problem areas.

But whenever someone asks me what classic sports car, I would choose as a retirement project and a "keeper" that remains permanently satisfying to drive and maintain, the two cars that always come to mind are the MGB and the Lotus Seven - though the Lotus would be less practical as a road car, and more expensive.

There were so many MGBs built - more than a million between 1962 and 1980 - that most of them remain in the $4,000 to $12,000 price range depending on condition. They are, as my fellow serial MG-restoring buddy John Jaeger remarked "A noble car that wasn't built just for the nobility. Almost anyone can afford one."

There's a huge aftermarket parts industry for these cars, and nothing - other than a little machine shop work on the engine - that can't be done by a reasonably skilled home mechanic with a tool kit. Outside help or expertise is seldom needed; you can fix these things forever, by yourself, in your own garage.

And so can the next owner in case you end up wearing a cardigan sweater and pulling up weeds for a hobby. We are frail, but the MGB just may be immortal.

Last Production MGB Makes Return to Town of Its Birth
by Gerald Ferreira of 3D Car Shows

The very last MGB Roadster made, which rolled off the MG Car Company’s Abingdon production line on October 23, 1980, made a dramatic return to its home town today on December 1, 2011.

The property of the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon, it has been placed on indefinite loan to the 17th Century Abingdon County Hall Museum. And, due to the practical limitations imposed by the picturesque Grade One listed building, the car had to be ‘posted’ on its side through the arched windows of the first floor, with just inches to spare.

The task of first stripping the MG to its bare shell, fitting that to a specially designed cradle, masterminding the pair’s delivery into the building via a gigantic 30 ton scissor lift, and finally rebuilding the car for public display, fell to Witney-based British Motor Heritage (BMH), which also sponsored the ambitious project from start to finish.

Said BMH’s Managing Director John Yea: "As the only manufacturer of original-quality replacement panels and complete bodyshells for the ubiquitous MGB, we felt we were the appropriate company to help bring this challenging task to fruition for all concerned. 2012 is the 50th anniversary of this perennially popular sports car, and it is very fitting that a representative example will be proudly displayed in the town where over 500,000 were built; a high percentage of which were exported to America."

"Earning the American Dream" by Gordon Whitby

Book - Earning the American Dream A new interesting book "Earning the American Dream," is about the introduction of foreign made automobiles into North America, back in the 1940's and 1950's, and the great success' foreign cars enjoy to this day. During that same period, the U.S. totally dominated the world's production of cars / trucks, tires, steel, locomotives, and aircraft. Unfortunately that domination is no longer the case.

Whitby's unique experiences and well documented book reflects the rise of Britain's and Europe's largest automobile company, when Austin Motor took over the Nuffield auto group in 1952, forming British Motor Corporation (BMC) making it the fourth largest auto company in the world. Whitby goes into great detail on how BMC sports cars; the Austin Healey and MG, were so successful in America through the 1960's yet BMC, old design, poor quality control sedans, failed miserably.

Whitby was invited to join BMC record attempts on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1956, 1957, and 1959, during which he became a good friend of Syd Enever, Chief Engineer and designer for the MG Car Co. Ltd. His direct communications with Enever, helped to improve the quality of the MG and Austin Healey cars. Many interesting copies of their correspondence spanning ten years are reproduced.

Car lovers will enjoy the great road racing photos, many in color especially those covering BMC Bonneville Salt Flats of 1956, 1957, and 1959 and will be amazed at the very successful endurance and speed records established by Syd Enever's outstanding MG and Austin Healey sports car designed streamliners, all of which are well documented.

The book should also appeal to those that are interested in economics, especially as it relates to trade, manufacturing, and transportation, and in the demise, of so many British and American auto companies, over the years. Throughout the 338 page book, Whitby and BMC American dealers' recommendation to have new modern designed sedans, quality control, more powerful overhead camshaft engines, and full synchomesh transmission, were totally ignored by BMC top management. This allowed progressive Japanese companies like Nissan and Toyota and later Korean companies to take over from the pioneering British with better designed and higher quality cars.

Whitby devoted 16 years with the British Motor Corporation in the US, 17 years as a sales executive of Nissan Motor Corporation in USA. and he finally completed his successful career as Vice President of Business and Finance for years where he guided a debt ridden and badly managed private university in Southern California to one of fiscal responsibility and success. There is a wealth of knowledge in this remarkable book that would be very difficult to find elsewhere. In addition it is a book well worth owning as an profits will be donated to cancer research.

Author: Gordon Whitby
Retail: $50.00
8.25" x 10.75", 340 pages
Phone: 626-688-3554
Email: gordonwhitby@yahoo.com

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