Amtrak Roadtrip 2018 January 19—21, 2018 We travel by Amtrak in the worst of winter to visit places around Chicago for weekend trips. This year the destination is about ten miles west of Detroit, an old favorite in terms of the hotel and attractions. The main attraction is the North American International Auto Show more generally known as the Detroit Auto Show held in Cobo Hall downtown. Other attractions in the area include the Ford River Rouge Complex, the Ford Museum and the Automotive Hall of Fame. The Greenfield Inn has over two hundred rooms, pool, hot tub, sauna, lounge and restaurant plus all the standard amenities. The automotive art consisting of photographs, paintings and dealership posters portrays the automotive industry from its inception and covers most of the corridor walls of all three stories. One weekend is not enough to appreciate this accommodation including fresh cookies at check-in. Details: Meet at Union Station (Canal and Adams Streets in Chicago) around noon on Friday, January 19, 2018. Return on Sunday, same place, about 4 P.M. There is usually seating around the food court to wait until it is time to go the train. Or you may find club members in the nearby bar. Trains: Friday — 352 WolverineLeave at 12:50 P.M.Arrive 6:44 P.M. Dearborn Sunday — 353 WolverineLeave 11:42 A.M.Arrive 3:57 P.M. Chicago The fare is about $70 roundtrip per person. Fares increase the closer to the departure date. You may be able to find a special fare. Hotel: Best Western Greenfield Inn, Address: 3000 Enterprise Dr, Allen Park, MI 48101 Group name – ChicagolandMGClub, $94 king, $99 2 twin beds + tax, breakfast included Phone: (313) 271-1600 ~~ Jake & Ann Snyder     Questions? snyder@chicagolandmgclub.com

MGA Guru Gone Mobile

As of last report we were just finishing off our long (many years) overdue tour of shops in Illinois. We have determined that 17 of those shops are now closed (from a 15-year-old list). The good news is that at least 63 are still open for servicing or supplying parts or service for vintage British cars, and the list is now "vetted" and current.

On 1st November we dropped in to visit some old friends at a monthly meeting of Champaign County Sports Car Club, an affiliate of Central Illinois Region SCCA (Sports Car Club of America). Fifteen years since we had seen these folks, but many of them are still active and remembered us. The significance of this organization is that I was doing autocross and road rally regularly here (among other places) all through the 90's. This was a huge contribution to breaking a fixing my MGA a lot (along with competition experience), resulting in good technical experience to be followed by the large range of technical pages on my web site (and some of the tech stuff on the CMGC web site). Interesting déjà vu experience, but we are likely not to pass this way again.

We moved into Indiana, starting with one shop that is "retired" but recommended a new shop we hadn't known before. Collectable Auto Restoration Services run by Tony Bowen in Terre Haute, IN turned up restoration work on three MGA and an MGB GT, and tons of vintage British car parts (along with some vintage American cars). We were dabbling around Kentucky for a day, finding a closed shop, a mail order only business, a shop with no street address and no call back form a voice message, and a shop that moved but still services vintage British cars occasionally, Complete Auto Repair Professionals in Flatwoods, KY. We hopped twice across the river through Ohio into West Virginia to find another shop owner now retired from the business. We then retired for a couple days when shops are usually not open on the weekend.

(Continued on page 14)