Edward
Bartender
- Messages
- 25,081
- Location
- London, UK
View attachment 90832 Which MG do you have GHT? I've got a 1970 B and I use the "1970" loosely as it's an Australian import which came to Oz as a knock down kit so is a mash of 68-70 parts. She's a bit of a "vanilla" classic but runs like a dream and has never left me in the smelly stuff.
Very nice. You're right that in that ers there were some 'bitsas', though if you prefer the styling of the earlier cars, that can be a bonus. In the UK, if memory serves, 69 was the year during which the radiator grill as on yours was replaced with the black 'honeycomb' grille, and in 1970 the bumper overriders gained a rubber piece on the front of them.
If ever I were to run a car myself, an early 70s, BMC era MGBGT would be a nice motor. Less sought after by the purists than the pre-70 cars (or especially the '66 and earlier, which as memory serves was the last year in which leather was standard for seating - after that it was an optional extra), but still very practical - and, crucially, still mechanically sound (the big rubber safety bumpers they adopted from 75 onwards were ugly to my eye, and coincided with them plaing around with all sortso f other spec to cut manufacturing costs - suspension took a turn for the worse, and the higher ride height didn't do handling any favours either).
That's a lovely 'B' that you have got yourself there, set off in racing green, a real beauty. Compliments to you.
It was most perceptive of you to identify the car in my avatar, it's the later YB model, just 1301 were ever built. What appeals about the Y type is that the design is pre-war. It came to the drawing board in 1937, prototypes were running in mid to late 1938, production was due to follow after the car's appearance in the 1939/40 Motor Show. The hostilities that was WW2 meant that MG's factory went over to war effort production. The Y type and TC were mothballed until car production resumed. So although my car was one of the last built in 1952, it's appearance is very much 1930's.
View attachment 91120
It's interesting how many British cars built after the war carried on those pre-war stylings, and for so long - not only the MGs, but the sidevalve Fords, which were very much prewar cars even mechanically, in production right up til 59. My dad used to have a Sunbeam MkIII, a 1957 model from the last year of production, which still looked very prewar (though it was a real racer by comparison, which was a suprb combination for longer runs). Of course, even the next generation of Brit cars were long-lasters; hard to imagine now how little - bodyshape aside - the Austin Cambridge really changed across its long run, or, for that matter, the venerable Morris Minor, during its 1948 to 1971 run. Different world now; I've not kept up with new cars for the most part in years, but I doubt many of those that were current when I last paid attention (twenty years ago or more) are models still around.
I see a lot of no shorts or flipflops. I spent 2009-2012, 3 years in the hotter than hell country of Iraq. We had days that hit in the 140's. 7-12s long ass days. The minute we got off duty, it was shorts, tees and flops. 2014-2017 the South Pacific, Marshall islands, I went 24 months without putting on a pair of long pants. When it is hot and humid like that, pride and style go out the window. Just saying. Now Montana...different story altogether.
IT'll always vary on what people are comfortable in, I guess. If getting out of the Sun is absoloutely not an option, that's when I not only stick to the long trews, but also often reach for the long sleeve shirt too. I burn easily, and I know too many people who've had run-ins with skin cancer to risk it.