Wednesday 3 August 2011

Automotive Authenticity













In the Old Dart you can buy a "new" MGB off the showroom floor.

The question is, of course, why would you?

I’ve driven MGBs, and they’re characterized by heavy steering, leaks, and dodgy mechanical reliability.

The Mazda MX5 offers everything the MGB did, but it’s watertight and reliable.

This may be the solution. These things come with MX5 engines and trannies. The whole body shell is beefed up, and they’re trimmed with state of the art materials.

The question remains, however – why would you buy one?

You can get a new MX5 for less than half the ask in the UK.

If you really want an MG, just buy an MX5 and some octagon badges, and substitute them for the Mazda logos. A good panel beater would do this for a couple of hundred dollars.

The MG Rover trademark is owned by the Chinese these days, so authenticity is relative in 2011.

2 comments:

Boy on a bike said...

Not sure about buying an MG, but a mate of mine used to own a couple of Sunbeam Tigers. If you ever went for a drive in one, you'd understand the desire to have one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunbeam_Tiger

Even Cav would like one - lightweight open top with a 260cu Ford thingy up the front. Went like the clappers and sounded magnificent.

1735099 said...

The Tiger story is interesting.
From Wikipedia -
"Production of the Tiger only lasted from 1964 until Chrysler purchased Rootes in June 1967. Chrysler could not be expected to sell a car with a Ford engine, but had no suitable replacement of its own: Chrysler's small-block V8 engines had the distributor positioned at the rear of the engine, unlike the front-mounted distributor of the Ford V8; their big-block V8 had a front-mounted distributor but was significantly larger. It was impossible to fit either into the Sunbeam engine bay without major and expensive revisions, thus the Tiger was canceled."

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