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Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 1......

"Crisis, what mid-life crisis?" 

I suppose I'm no different from any other chap of my age group (the phrase "book him Danno" springs to mind, you do the maths!) where you suddenly decide the things you did/didn't do/had/didn't have when you were twenty five seem very appealing and it was no different with me. I don't know precisely what triggered it but sometime in the mid-summer of 2005 I decided I had to have an MGB/C or MGB/C GT, probably a chrome bumper model, preferably tax exempt and most decidedly red, so you're probably wondering why I bought a rubber bumper, yellow one!!! Read on........ 

I'd never owned an MGB but I had driven one quite a bit back in the early 70's, a friend of mine had a white, CB, MGB GT and I drove it every chance I got. Usually this meant, quite unashamedly, begging or, more often than not, swapping drives with my 1974 Rover 2000TC. The more I drove the more I felt I had to own one but, as usual, something always seems to get in the way. Initially it was because a group of us always went out on a Friday/Saturday night (and usually Sunday lunch time as well...) for a drink and to see how far we could get with the opposite sex (dismally as I seem to recall...), so a four door car was needed, hence the Rover. We were pretty responsible back then and operated the "designated driver" system so whatever car I owned it had to have reasonable back seats.

Then I met my, soon to be, wife and she liked the Rover so I kept it for a bit longer, however this didn't stop me swapping it for a 1970, 4.2ltr Daimler Sovereign, with electric everything, quite flash in 1981! Pretty soon we decided to get married, and buy a house, so the Daimler had to go, well, 12 to the gallon was far less appealing with a mortgage to pay.... At this point I briefly considered an MG but the vote went to another British Leyland product in the shape of a Mini 1000, great fun to drive AND it had semi useable rear seats!

After a couple of years with the Mini it was decided a bigger car was in order so we went for an almost new Ford Fiesta MkI, which was, at best, OK, then the kids came along....... Two door Mini's and Fiesta's were no good with a growing family so a whole series of four-door "family" sized Renault's and Ford's followed with absolutely no chance of a car anything remotely resembling an MGB! 

Fast forward twenty years, the kids are grown and, almost, off our hands, there's a nice, safe, Renault Scenic, parked on the drive and the mortgage is almost paid for but there's something missing. I start thinking about the MGB I almost, but never quite, had and I start, seriously, thinking about buying one. My wife needs some convincing first though. "What do we need one of those for"? was something I heard fairly often during my initial forays on the subject. However, it was at times like these that I resorted to a tried and trusted method of attack, which was to keep bringing up the subject and repeating myself over and over until she eventually gave in just to stop me going on about it!

"Enter The Dragon........" 

Having been given the green light the first thing to do was find out as much as I could about MGB's. There followed as many MG websites as I could find, followed by as many classic cars magazines as W H Smith's could supply me with. I already knew there was a huge industry surrounding the MGB/C/V8 so spares were not a problem, what I needed to know was just what to look out for with these cars. I have a pretty decent mechanical background, anyone who has owned not one but TWO Hillman Imps will tell you how hands on you needed to be with those cars! So much so that I ended up completely rebuilding the second one, I'd also owned, or we had in the family, quite few Austin Mini's/1100's/1300's/Maxi's so I felt I was reasonably familiar with BMC/BL engineering.

So what were the faults I needed to look out for and what sort of price did I need to pay to get a good one? It was a steep learning curve to say the least, having read countless horror stories of rotten wings/sills/castle sections/floors/boot floors/ etc etc I began to realise it wouldn't be quite as straightforward as I first hoped it would be! As for prices well, they seemed to vary from virtually give away to positively stratospheric and it didn't always follow that the more you paid the better the car. I began to wonder if it would be better to buy a restoration project for the mechanicals and a new BH shell, at least I'd know what I was getting.

In the end I discounted this option for the time being, for one I don't have a garage at the moment and, two, we plan on moving in the near future (to a house with a garage!) so time would be short and I didn't fancy having to transport an MGB in bits from one location to another. Another factor, of course, was that I wanted to drive the car NOW, not in two-three years time, or longer, depending on how much work/time would be involved, we've all read the 7 year rebuild stories haven't we? I decided that the best bet would be a MG dealer/restorer route, at least I'd have some comeback if things went pear shaped. I had also looked at countless MGB's on eBay but it always scared the life out of me bidding on something sight unseen! 

Having chosen the route the next thing was to decide on exactly which model. Chrome or Rubber Bumper, early or late, MGB or MGB GT, a 3ltr C or a V8? I discounted the V8 (as much as I would like one) as being too complex mechanically at this early stage of my MG career. The same with the C, a good C could be quite pricey and I'd set myself an upper limit in terms of cost. An early car was also discounted and I decided on either a late CB model, or a late RB model. Early RB models suffer from poor imported steel (there was a steel strike on in the mid-seventies). Next on the agenda was open or closed, roadster or GT? Being a regular golfer I felt I would need to use the car quite frequently in the winter so a GT was chosen, I could always restore a roadster in the future right?

Time for some action, the car was to be a late CB, or late RB GT, I had an upper limit and it was now time to look for the best one I could find.........

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