| The Spanner
by Dennis Trowbridge
I want to mourn the passing of the cheap
MGB. You remember these cars. They were the under $ 500.00 beaters you used
to see in the classified ads all the time. Mostly they had rusty sills,
smoky engines, bad clutches, torn tops and good stereos. They all belonged
to some high school or college kid who couldn't afford to fix them or pay
the sky high insurance rates. The previous series of owners held on to the
cars and patched them together the best they could until the next tuition
or insurance bill came due.
That's when these forlorn MG's went up for sale. Most of the time, these
cars went on to some other clueless owner and the cycle would start all
over again. Back in the 60's, 70's and early 80's, it wasn't as easy to
get parts as it is today and if you had to deal with some British Leyland
dealer, you could be in real trouble. At one time, the Zenith-Stromberg
carb diaphragm had to be purchased as part of a whole "Blue Emissions
Pack" and could cost upwards of $45.00. Victoria British and the Roadster
Factory didn't exist and Moss was still mostly concerned with the earlier
MG's.
Still these sad MGB's and Midgets opened the world of MG sprit to many of
us. We wanted that sports car and the thought of driving the Chevy all the
time was to much to bear. These cheap cars were our passport to excitement
and the knowledge that we were different. We would learn to fix our own
cars and how to cope with emergencies. We learned to sync a carb, fix a
fuel pump on the side of the road and sometimes, the patience needed to
wait for the tow truck or for the backordered part to come in. We also learned
to laugh along with all the jokes and that in the end only made us feel
better about our cars and ourselves.
The beater MG was and still is a great teacher. After I bought my first
Midget, I soon found out that I couldn't afford to have a garage work on
it and they didn't know any better than I did how to fix that little "furrin"
car. I soon found out that with the workshop manual and a few tools, I could
do the work myself. It felt great to come home from a bad day at work and
fix the MG. For me and many others, a tune-up led to a brake job to a suspension
rebuild to an engine rebuild to a total restoration. Soon that beater MG
wasn't a beater any more and the laughs would become admiring comments.
When I joined the club more than fifteen years ago, there were many young
kids with rough MG's in the club. The meetings were full of stories about
breakdown and emergency repairs. Some one was always working on their MG.
We traveled in caravans for safety because someone was going to break something
during the trip. We had great fun! No one was ever abandoned on the side
of the road and AAA was the ultimate last resort. We had a kind of camaraderie
that has been slipping away the last few years. Too many of us now work
in secret in our garages and won't even bring the car out if it isn't perfect
. This kind of attitude is missing the MG SPIRIT!
These cheap MG's brought a lot of new blood into the club and a lot of enthusiasm
as well. I miss these sad worn out MG's and the love of the marque they
engendered. Many of these cars are now pristine restored examples that only
see the occasional rallye or car show and only then if the sun is sure to
shine. Far too many others have been cut up of parts and scrap. It's long
past time to stop thinking of the worn out MGB as a parts car. You can get
anything you need to fix the cars, so put them in the paper for couple of
bucks and pass them on to a new generation of wide eyed MG owners. The club
needs them.
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