At 11:08 AM 3/6/05 -0500, David Munro wrote:
The attached recent pic is the MG-A I've owned since building it in 1961. I was helped then by Bob Lester, who ran a repair shop "Foreign Car Hospital" first in Hyde Park and then in South Shore.

It is a stock MGA 1600, plus a La Dawri shell (from a Devin competitor), and more fiberglass work and acetone baths for me than I care to remember. The car came to me in '61 when I was 15; asking my folks for an MG by the time I was 16. I was hoping for a clapped out TD I might be able to nurse to life. Knowing my Scottish dad, I never dreamed of a then current A..

Sooo: I was challenged with a rolled 12-month old A with crumpled fenders and this even newer one that had suffered an interior fire. Bingo; one quickly unrolled A and one rolling chassis; and dad saying we'd have to put some clothes on that big go-Kart! Eventually, this one emerged and sale of the other paid the bills..

For the ensuing 44 years, my father or I have used it as a driver or parked it out of irritation at the squirming to get in past the wrap around windscreen; then the cycle resumed. Or, I get irritated that something's broken that I know I've repaired; forgetting at first that the repair was 20 years back! Today, it's my sunny day car in Daytona, which is nicely common. It does have a top and even built-in pivoting side windows in the doors. It's been used at various times as a commuting car in Chicago, Boston, and Washington DC.

(And at the same time in 1961), .... Bob Lester had built and had in his shop a radical MG-A, the later whereabouts I've long wondered about; until now. I'm more than 99% certain that it is the car in your modified body pics labeled "Hawk, built by Bob West." I recall this car in Lester's shop initially without the blower and long scoop, and then those being added by about 1963. It was not just a radical custom, but also beautifully finished inside and out.

David Munro, Spruce Creek Fly-In, Daytona Beach

There are a number of different La Dawri body designs.
For more information check out www.forgottenfiberglass.com

Above, original advert of the La Dawri. Note the TD wheels on the prototype from 1958. The windshield was from a 1958-62 Vauxhall Victor. The body was built to fit a on MG TD, TF and MGA chassis. This is the Quest QT body that came out in 1958 for 94 inch wheel-base cars (photos above and below). They were re-designed in the front about 1962 and the name was changed to Daytona (photo at top of page).