Only car

The reason LBCs got such a poor reputation was this - you have to remember, when we owned those MG TDs and TR2s and 3's back in the 1950s, they were our only cars, not the pampered, garaged pets of today. My cars sat out year round - in the summer heat and winter snows and ice. The TDs were constant trouble but I have to say that my TR3, a 1956, gave me no problems whatsoever in the 2 1/2 years I owned it, including races at Lime Rock and Thompson, gymkhanas and daily driving. Plus it got stolen one night out of my folk's driveway and joyrided and when I got it back, it had a flower pot in back of the seat and the gearbox was noisy and it was then that I decided to trade it in for a 1957 Porsche coupe.

As some may remember when I first joined this forum I used my 79 Spitfire as my daily driver and overall it wasn't a bad car: noisy, hot, and pokey on the highway, but endearing in many ways. It was my daily for approximately five years during which time I put something like 100K on the clock.

I've been lucky I guess. Usually had at least two LBC's at any given time, if one developed an issue I had another to drive to fetch whatever was needed to fix the problem. I used the Elan as a daily for over a decade, loads of folks didn't believe it kept going as long as it did.