When I took my MGF to the British Faire car show in MI last summer, I didn't hear one person say "its not a real MG". Most were wondering how to get their own.

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Canadian Modern MG Rover Car Club - www.cmmgrcc.org

ok,some of that im gonna have to look into,some i know the answer to.
the transmission tunnel and floor panels arent original as theres a manufacurers label still on the tunnel.the reversing lamps im assuming were grafted in(crudely because there wasnt a shoulder in the opening).the box and engine are out of a '74 model.But the VIN plate was checked by an MGOC member who assured me its never been tampered with,so im reasonably hopeful it is the original shell,not that much of the original still exists

Laura

E-types are nice but they do not float my boat, give me a MGB anyday. Yes some pictures of your car would be nice.
I spent some time in Glasgow when I was on a submarine that used to refit in Holy Loch and remember Dunoon well. We had a nickname for the local girls, Dunoon Dollies but a lot of the local lads were not pleased with us competing for a date, so it was off to Glasgow. Sorry I digress.

Ron

Great post Laura. I've enjoyed the discussion that has come out of it.

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Canadian Modern MG Rover Car Club - www.cmmgrcc.org

So, what were the Glasgow girls called???

John
We did not have a nick name for them since it was further away and the guys usually only made that trip if they had the weekend off. Dunoon/Sandbank was a short boat ride from the tender which was anchored in the middle of the loch and the submarines moored outboard it when they came in off patrol. To get to Glasgow you had to take a ferry across the clyde to Gurock and pick up a train. If you had a car you could take the long way around.

By the time I was in Holy Loch I already had over 20 years in and was married with a family so only know what the young single guys told me. Since I was the Chief of the Boat I got to hear all the stories, good and bad. As usual 10% of the crew was 90% of my problems.

Ron

A submariner eh! That would explain why you like small cars!
I was in Lossiemouth Scotland with the Canadian Army, what a cold damp place.
We didn't have a name for the local girls, but the RAF called us "Canadian Hooligans"!
A buddy of mine discovered a training hospital nearby full of Nurses, but didn't tell us
about it until the day before we left. He showed up with a red haired cutie named Fiona Finnegan.
She was wearing her nurse's uni complete with the little white cap and red lined blue cape.
She made our hearts go pitter-patter but we had to return to Germany the next day.
I'll never forgive him for that!


A whole hospital FULL of nurses!.........sigh*

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Modern MGs aren't just Transportation, They're a Hobby!

Rich

Your buddy hit the jackpot and did not even tell you. There is a name for people like that. Lossiemouth, wet and cold about covers it. I also spent a few years in London and loved that place.

Ron

I was in Scotland in November and went down to Greenock/Gurock to look at a couple of salvage vessels my friend was looking at buying. I would say not much changes there in the past 40 years either!!!!

8 years ago we stayed in a holiday house close to Dunoon (just NE of Inverness) with a group of friends for a week and we managed one day of partial sunshine which was rare in the springtime! Beautiful area around the Black Isle and made a trip to the MG Dealer in Inverness which was the best part of that trip for me LOL!!

I only get around to popping in here every once in awhile so I am late to this discussion. That won't deter me from offering an opinion, however!

First, while never loathe to take a contrarian position, if only to foment discussion, I must say that the 'real MG' question is a non-starter. The current owners are the successors in title to the original manufacturer, so while arguing that their product isn't 'real' is de rigeur for the hidebound traditionalist, it is also factually incorrect.

That isn't the case where an original manufacturer became extinct and all that survived was the right to the use of a trade name, if that. Take Bugatti - does anyone really think that there is any sort of continuity, even a tenuous legal one, with Ettore's products? Brand names are intellectual legal property which cane be bought and sold, but when the name itself was not owned by an automobile concern that actually made cars for 30 years, all ideological continuity is severed, IMHO.

Similar thing with Jensen. The name transferred once for a related party attempt at reviving the cars in the 1980s, but after that the name was traded around like bubblegum trading cards to anyone that fancied producing some sort of new car, relying on the name recognition for added sales attraction. Two attempts were notable failures.

The owner of the MG name kept on going long enough to transfer the name, albeit not doing a lot with it themselves, so the current company is a car manufacturer in direct line, and it is very hard to argue that this is an attempted rebirth from nothing.

OTOH, I think the question shouldn't be what constitutes a 'real' MG, but rather what constitutes a 'good' MG.

A 'good' MG could be defined as one that was a relatively small close coupled 2 seater with sporty aspirations and nature.

By that functional definition, a case could be made that the last 'good' MG was made in 1974 (or perhaps 1980 for those in the home country), as the RBB with single carb engine was a travesty forced on the factory by laws beyond their control that resulted in as non-sporting a nature as could be calculated to have the staff from the 1950s and earlier rolling in their graves at considerable RPM.

There is also a line of logic that places the demise of the good MGs with the MGA Twin Cam, which was the last true attempt to produce a sports car that was in the technological front of contemporary sports car production rather than trailing it. I am inclined to include the early MGBs as 'good' MGs, as they really were that, at least until the smog and safety regs killed all sporting aspirations.

If you look at the 'good' rather than 'real' question, you won't find yourself wanting to defend, for emotional reasons, a current product that you would probably never approve of under any other circumstances. I don't think people feeling obliged to stand up and gamely defend the all but indefensible (modern MGs, or RBBs or whatever) for reasons other than pure logic is terrifically useful in terms of promoting an interesting dialogue on the cars, but maybe that's just me.

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Bill Spohn www.rhodo.citymax.com/carstuff.html
1958 MGA Twincam (race car), 1962 MGA Deluxe Coupe
1969 MGC roadster, 1957 Jamaican MGA
1965 Jensen CV8, 1971 Jensen Interceptor
1969 Lamborghini Islero S, 1988 Fiero GT turbo
2009 Pontiac Solstice GXP Coupe
West Vancouver BC

Hello Bill!
You've never been one to let sleeping dogs lie!
I agree with your concept of lineage but I think that you are way off base with the "Good MG" argument.
Of course the typical MG all along, at least after the debut of the M-Type, is a "close coupled two seater"
The sedans, if not typical have always been an integral part of the product line, and for the most part have exhibited the
sporting characteristics that made MG famous. The Y and Z type MGs were raced and rallied in the 50's to good effect, and recently
Vintage SA's have completed the Paris to Peking and Capetown Rallies. Many of the badge engineered MG sedans have also given a good accounting of theselves in sporting events(MG1100, Montego, Metro)
I know you are a Twin-Cam afficianado but to call the Twinkie the last of the "good" MGs is a bit of a stretch don't you think?
The engine, while a good concept was a dismal failure in production mostly due to the old MG bugbear, insufficient development.
I realise that the engine problems were eventually sorted, but that was long after the car was axed, with the engine never seeing use again. As far as your description of a Good MG, the MGF/TF fits the bill in every manner. It is a close coupled roadster with a Twin-Cam engine (Which was not without it's problems of course, but which were nowhere as destructive as the 1950's Twin-Cam)
The car handles very well, looks good, and was produced in larger numbers than every other MG roadster with the exception of the MGB.
Anyhow, lunch break is over and I've got to get back to work. I'll look in later.

Rich

BTW: I have owned a 1974 MGB, 1975 MGB, ZA, ZB, various GT's and A's, and, err, a Twin-Cam

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Modern MGs aren't just Transportation, They're a Hobby!

Rich, you have to look at the cars in relation to cars of a similar degree of cost and size in a given time period. And you have to look at them in a particular style or class. While MG made sporting saloons as ell, I am referring specifically to their two seater sports products.

MG made only two cars that were state of the art in a given size/price class at a given point in history. One was the K3 Magnettes which competed on an even basis with more expensive continental products. The other was the post-war MGA Twin Cam, which also was in the technical forefront with an engine that, when sorted (which you pointed out and I agreed was never doen during production) was competitive with the Alfas of the time, and a chassis that was ahead of the Italian cars in the area of braking.

All the rest of the time from 1925 through 1980 the MGs were 'also rans', trailing the herd and using old technology. No shame in that - there are always a majority of manufacturers that are by nature trailing , and only the rare ones that lead the pack, at least for a time. It is remarkable that MG was able to do so twice in its history.

If you lower the standard for 'good' sports car from the ones that were leading the pack, albeit for a limited time, you let in all the other more mundane, less technically interesting, but nonetheless enjoyable cars like the MGB, the various T series, the J and the M series....

When I say 'brief' for being in the window of technology I do mean brief. The MGA Twin Cam was there for only just less than 3 years and a couple of thousand cars, and even if they hadn't committed the enormous faux pas of issuing a car they hadn't sorted out properly, it would have fallen off the dias no later than 1962 when Lotus superceded it with a lighter, better designed engine, in a lighter better designed IRS chassis, the Elan.

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Bill Spohn www.rhodo.citymax.com/carstuff.html
1958 MGA Twincam (race car), 1962 MGA Deluxe Coupe
1969 MGC roadster, 1957 Jamaican MGA
1965 Jensen CV8, 1971 Jensen Interceptor
1969 Lamborghini Islero S, 1988 Fiero GT turbo
2009 Pontiac Solstice GXP Coupe
West Vancouver BC

Hi Bill,
I don't come here to argue, but I don't see how the MGA Twin-Cam can be considered either leading edge or a success.
They simply added an alloy head to an existing cast iron block and dropped it into what was pretty much a stock car.
The Dunlop brakes were new quite new to the market, but MG weren't the first users.
The car only sold 2000 units, the faults couldn't be rectified over the production period of 3 years and the car was withdrawn from production and the engine was never used again. They almost certainly spent more on warranty rectification than they took in sales. Success? A Good MG? Doesn't look like it.

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Modern MGs aren't just Transportation, They're a Hobby!

Rich, you aren't reading very carefully.

Let me restate that the MGA Twin Cam was a BIG FAILURE!

Got that out of your system?

I never said it was a successful model and in fact stated at least twice that it was quite the contrary. The question wasn't how well models sold, it was were they in the running for state of the art in comparison to other contemporary cars of comparable configuration and displacement, and the Twin Cam was technically advanced for 1958.

It is immaterial that a flaw that better production testing would have caught kept it from selling well. Even if the engine had been a success from day one, it would have managed only a decade before smog regs would have killed it anyway, and it would in any case have been old hat once the Ford/Lotus engine had been produced a few years later (another engine that I would note was built on an existing cast iron block - but so what? What would you expect them to do, toss out a perfectly serviceable bottom end to start with a fresh slate? Neither MG nor Ford were that wasteful).

You seem to think that technological superiority has to have an element of sales volume involved, not sure why. In fact history shows that it was often quite the contrary.

The MGA Twin Cam was the first DOHC high output engine in a 4 wheel disc chassis at the middle price point up to that time. Yes, Alfa had the engines, and Jensen had used the brakes in the next displacement rung up (as had Austin Healey in a more limited way in the 100S) but no one else had put them all together in a production sports car before.

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Bill Spohn www.rhodo.citymax.com/carstuff.html
1958 MGA Twincam (race car), 1962 MGA Deluxe Coupe
1969 MGC roadster, 1957 Jamaican MGA
1965 Jensen CV8, 1971 Jensen Interceptor
1969 Lamborghini Islero S, 1988 Fiero GT turbo
2009 Pontiac Solstice GXP Coupe
West Vancouver BC

Having owned a Twin Cam it sure was fun to drive.

Now my favorite MG to drive is the SV, and I think it is a real MG even if it has a Ford drive train, Fiat lights, chassis made in Italy, windscreen made in Spain, carbon fiber made in UK and shipped and cooked in Italy, blah, blah, blah. And of course the last thing the Phoenix 4 did before they bailed out.

Yes still a real MG to me.

Ron

Ron,

Having driven your car (before you owned it!!) I too think it's a real MG!!

Although a SV-R is pretty sweet too!

SAFETY FAST!

John



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2012 03:13PM by terreneuve.

Bill,
I don't need to get anything out of my system.
I owned YD3-1423 back in the 80's and I do have a good knowledge og the model.
The point you made was that the MGA Twin-Cam was a "Good MG" and placed it in the same category as the K3 Magnette
which was a very short run car, built to race, although it was sold as a production car, sort of a 1930's Homologation Special.
By any measure the K3 was a "Good MG", arguably the best MG...although the Q-Type and R-Type afficianados may dispute that.
It's ironic that you didn't include the 6R4 in your list of "good MGs" as it was also a homologation special that had the potential to be a world beater, FWIW it also had a purpose built twin-cam engine. In the 6R4's case it's career was cut short due to the fact that the rally class it was developed for was cancelled. They are still racing today 30 years later.
For that matter there is the MGF/TF which was designed on the typical MG shoestring budget, was also a twin-cam, used a great deal of innovation in repurposing existing corporate components into a very innovative, performing package, and did the job it was designed for; outselling the MX-5 in the UK market. The MGF/TF sold over 115,000 "Good MGs".
Unfortunately there are still many MG Model snobs who consider their particular variant to be a "Real MG" to the exclusion of others.
Myself, I like em all. The Chinese cars are a bit of a stretch, seeing as how they are no longer built in Britain. My hope is that our Chinese friends will keep the marque alive until one day it makes it's way back to the UK, but only time will tell.
I would be quite happy to take in an MG1100, a Montego Turbo or an M-Type....even an MGA Twin-Cam.(But I'be been down that road before)
Regards,
Rich

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Modern MGs aren't just Transportation, They're a Hobby!

Hello, mates. I've just wandered over from the MGA side, and wish that I'd found this excellent thread before starting one of my own there. I'm beholden to you, Laura. See here: http://www2.mgcars.org.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=mgbbs&mode=thread&access=61541571400012&subject=6&source=T&thread=2012022103522421861 . Sorry to intrude.

Ken Korey

Interesting reading Ken. It's too bad that you in the States can't get yourself an MGF, they are a delightful car.

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Canadian Modern MG Rover Car Club - www.cmmgrcc.org

Just read your post on the link, Ken. I will have have to point out that the RV8 isn't a rebadged Rover. Most had the Rover name on the fenders as this was required by the Japanese government for importation.

MGB-based which pretty much determines its pedigree.

Everyone will have their opinions on the thread topic and that's what discussion forums are all about.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; the MG badge is still around, unlike many other brands, and that's good enough for me.

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"Speed costs........how fast you want to spend?"