I sold my B, so what, it's only a car...Right? That's the kind of thing most people would say when you tell someone you've sold your MGB. But most people just don't understand. Those of us who love our cars understand. To us, they're not just cars, they take on their own individual personalites, they become like family, some people even name them!
I've had my B for more than 15 years. I've had one MG or another for more than thirty one years. My last B even outlasted my first wife (she never liked my MG's), thank God my current wife likes them( I think I'll keep her). I remember when I first saw my B, I had been looking to move up to a B from the previous Midgets I had owned. I looked at Don Anderson's B which he had up for sale at around the same time. That was a great car but I never even had a chance to make an offer on it because he had a change of heart and decided not to sell it. I couldn't understand why he'd decided not to sell at the time, I do now. I don't remember how I had found Rey Navarro's car, maybe it was the club newsletter. After contacting Rey, I met him at his house. I remember him showing me and my friend his cars in the garage, there was an old pre war MG and a split window corvette ( I think) Rey has a true love of cars too. Rey took me to the body shop where the car was being stored, somewhere near Ogden ave. It was a Black rubber bumpered LE. When I first saw it, it was covered with the kind of dust you typically see in a body shop, the sills where rusted out, the floors where pretty bad and the car was a total mess. But, Rey assured me that mechanically it was a very,very good car. How could you not trust this guy? As history has proved he was right. We made a deal which included his body guy putting the car back together, and painting it red. I remember we picked up the car from the body shop on a Wednesday night. Thursday night my buddy Tom and I installed the new Moss Biscuit interior, and Saturday we left on a 5000 mile round trip to the MG National meet in Lake Tahoe, California and back! More something than brains, as the saying goes. That trip is another story, you might want to check your back issues for that one. Or not.
Over the years many MG's have come and gone, the Midgets, a 51TD, too many B parts cars to even count, a few Morris Minors, a 59 MGA and now a 1994 MG RV8 (that last one's another story), But, my B has been here through them all. But, like so many of us, garage space was limited and with my latest and most exciting aquisition, something had to go.
At first, I advertised it in the club newsletter. Who better to take care of my B than a fellow MG enthusiast. Surely a club member would know how to properly care for it, and would give it a good home. Sadly, no club members where interested in it. My only offers came from scammers who wanted to pay more than I was asking, I simply needed to send them the excess funds.
I decided to give Ebay a try. I had bought and sold lots of things on Ebay, even a few MG parts cars. I took a lot of pictures of the B, and described it a best I could, pointing out all of it's flaws, trying to be as descriptive and honest as possible. The listing was for seven days and the bidding started off very slowly but then bids started pouring in. After a few days I'd recieved and answered dozens of emailed questions about the B. One guy asked if he could come and look at it, and take it for a test drive. He had never driven an MG before. Could I really let a novice buy my B, would he really know how to take care of it?
I'd already made the tough decision to sell it, so I had to be strong and see this through. He showed up at my house on a Saturday morning with his two teenaged sons in tow. I thought that was a good sign, a family man, perhaps even new young future club members. I took him for a test drive into the Stockyard Industrial park close to my home. I reluctanly let him take it for a test drive, I watched in horror as he ground and double clutched his way through the gears, at a pace that would have made Miss Daisy impatient. When we got back to my house he made an offer which I flatly denied. The next guy to come to my house looked at the B and began to pick all of it's flaws out and tell me about them, as if I didn't know. I made it pretty clear that he wouldn't be buying my car, so no offer was ever made.
Then came the call I had been waiting for. A gentleman from Omaha Nebraska called to ask some questions about the B. He said he had been looking for an anniversary gift for his wife and he thought this would be the perfect gift. I liked this guy already. We talked a little about the car and he said he'd get back to me. The next day he called me with his wife on the line. He said he didn't think he could pull it off as a surpise and he had to tell her about the car. They both sounded really excited, and for the first time I felt at ease about selling my B. Well, we made the deal and arranged for a car hauler to pick up the car. I braught my seventeen year old daughter with me to load the car onto the truck, and despite her telling me how weird I was for being so emotional about a car, she did pose for several pictures of it on the truck. I have to confess, I got a little choked up as the diesel engine fired up and the truck slowly pulled away. In a way, it was a lot like seeing your kids go away to college, you're sad, because you know you're going to miss them, but at the same time your happy about the exciting future ahead.
I was relieved, and knew I had made the right decision when I few days later I recieved an email from the buyers telling me how much they loved the car. I think that was most important to me, that my B would be enjoyed by the new owners as much as I had enjoyed it. It sounds like this should be the end of the story, and it is. But there's a new story brewing. Did I mention my MG RV8????? Talk to you soon!