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One day, when I was about 7 years old, I was riding in my mother's 1964 Buick Wildcat convertible – at that point my favorite car in the world – when we pulled in behind a Sunbeam convertible (either in Alpine or a Tiger... and that was it, I was in love with British sports cars, particularly convertibles. Whenever we would go out, I would search furiously for whatever small British sports car I could see: Aston Martins, Triumphs, Austin Healeys, MGs.
It was then that I learned that my father and I had the same passion, although I'd never known. As a young newly-minted husband in the early 1950s, he had bought himself a 1951 LHD Singer convertible for delivery in England, driving it all over Europe with my mother just a year or two after they'd been married. Later, when I was a lad, he owned a horrible 1960 Fiat Spider 1200 convertible, which - while gorgeous to look at – was so utterly unreliable that it only further whetted my appetite to stick with British cars... (I didn't yet know about Lucas Electronics, LOL).
When I was 16, I found myself driving behind another extraordinary British convertible classic, and I followed the car all the way to its owner's home to ask him what it was. Thankfully he was unarmed and not too frightened to tell me it was a 1953 MG TD. That was it, I decided that would be the British car I would buy. I never did after all, but the story didn’t end there.
Four years went by, during which I purchased an incredibly sensible and horribly ugly 1974 Saab 99L, which got me through every winter in later high school and college, but provided zero thrill factor. During this time I watched with sadness as the British car industry fell into disarray and disaster. All the companies merged into British Leyland, under government ownership, and the cars quality went further down every year. Triumph was dissolved in the mid-1970s and it seemed that all the other British cars would go the same route. When I heard that MG had announced the 1980 would be the last year production, I was fortunate to have my first decent paying job as a paralegal. I saved every penny I had and, in preparation of my own trip to Europe in the summer of 1980, I ordered a left-hand drive for delivery in London for me to drive around Europe and bring back home. My father was thrilled I was following in his footsteps.
That summer, my best pal and I drove that surprisingly reliable & well-built MGB (in Brooklands Green - what else) 10,000 miles throughout Europe. Our favorite drives were in mountain passes and on curvy cliff roads, such as in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and along the coast of the French Riviera. I've never had a better driving experience before or since, and although that MGB might be one of the less sexy British cars of the era, it's still in many ways my favorite. I loved the car so much that I bought a 1967 Midget for my girlfriend, which I retrofitted into a Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite by swapping out the hood and badging, and put in a larger MG engine. She abandoned it under her father's porch until it rusted away... I miss the car more than her.
Six years later, I made the mistake of trading that car in for a brilliant 1967 1/2 Jaguar E-Type convertible in Signal Red. In virtually every mechanical way, and from a driving perspective, the E-Type was, of course, a far superior car. The outstanding 4.2 L overhead cam engine, 4-wheel disc brakes, 4-wheel independent suspension, monocoque stream-lined body, etc., etc. As you all know, that car looked fast even when it was standing still. But to tell you the truth, the electronics were so unreliable that I never enjoyed driving the Jag quite as much as I did the MGB. Nevertheless, I held onto it for nearly 20 years, although it was in the heart of my starting a career, and I didn't get very much of a chance to drive it.
I then went another 15 years without a British car, until I woke up at 60-ish years old and decided that it was high time to get back into it. Over the past several years, I have purchased several of the British cars I've dreamed about for decades and enjoyed every one of them: a 1960 Jaguar Mark IX sedan, which is flat-out the coolest looking sedan in the history of all time (and it drives pretty well for a giant car) --- 1959 MGA Twin Cam roadster customized to a be a vintage racer (probably the best performing car I will ever own… and the sexiest) --- and to bring me back to my days of yore, a 1972 MGB in British Racing Green, with all that cool Chrome and a retrofitted 1960s dashboard. The only Brit car of my dreams that I took a pass on was the gorgeous 1954 Sunbeam Alpine – the one that Grace Kelly drove with Cary Grant in “To Catch a Thief”. It's both to rare to find parts for and a bit too unreliable even for a Brit car lover like me. And I'm still considering a Big Healey...
Now all I have to do is keep them in running order, LOL, and fortunately I found a brilliant Brit-car mechanic here on Cape Cod, MA, where I now spend half my time.
My only complaint is there aren't enough cliff roads and steep mountain passes near my garage, but I'm working on that.
Thrilled to join the British Car Forum and share the love, adventures, and – yes - travails.
JoshGee
- 1959 MGA Twin Cam Roadster
- 1960 Jaguar Mark IX Saloon
- 1972 MGB
It was then that I learned that my father and I had the same passion, although I'd never known. As a young newly-minted husband in the early 1950s, he had bought himself a 1951 LHD Singer convertible for delivery in England, driving it all over Europe with my mother just a year or two after they'd been married. Later, when I was a lad, he owned a horrible 1960 Fiat Spider 1200 convertible, which - while gorgeous to look at – was so utterly unreliable that it only further whetted my appetite to stick with British cars... (I didn't yet know about Lucas Electronics, LOL).
When I was 16, I found myself driving behind another extraordinary British convertible classic, and I followed the car all the way to its owner's home to ask him what it was. Thankfully he was unarmed and not too frightened to tell me it was a 1953 MG TD. That was it, I decided that would be the British car I would buy. I never did after all, but the story didn’t end there.
Four years went by, during which I purchased an incredibly sensible and horribly ugly 1974 Saab 99L, which got me through every winter in later high school and college, but provided zero thrill factor. During this time I watched with sadness as the British car industry fell into disarray and disaster. All the companies merged into British Leyland, under government ownership, and the cars quality went further down every year. Triumph was dissolved in the mid-1970s and it seemed that all the other British cars would go the same route. When I heard that MG had announced the 1980 would be the last year production, I was fortunate to have my first decent paying job as a paralegal. I saved every penny I had and, in preparation of my own trip to Europe in the summer of 1980, I ordered a left-hand drive for delivery in London for me to drive around Europe and bring back home. My father was thrilled I was following in his footsteps.
That summer, my best pal and I drove that surprisingly reliable & well-built MGB (in Brooklands Green - what else) 10,000 miles throughout Europe. Our favorite drives were in mountain passes and on curvy cliff roads, such as in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and along the coast of the French Riviera. I've never had a better driving experience before or since, and although that MGB might be one of the less sexy British cars of the era, it's still in many ways my favorite. I loved the car so much that I bought a 1967 Midget for my girlfriend, which I retrofitted into a Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite by swapping out the hood and badging, and put in a larger MG engine. She abandoned it under her father's porch until it rusted away... I miss the car more than her.
Six years later, I made the mistake of trading that car in for a brilliant 1967 1/2 Jaguar E-Type convertible in Signal Red. In virtually every mechanical way, and from a driving perspective, the E-Type was, of course, a far superior car. The outstanding 4.2 L overhead cam engine, 4-wheel disc brakes, 4-wheel independent suspension, monocoque stream-lined body, etc., etc. As you all know, that car looked fast even when it was standing still. But to tell you the truth, the electronics were so unreliable that I never enjoyed driving the Jag quite as much as I did the MGB. Nevertheless, I held onto it for nearly 20 years, although it was in the heart of my starting a career, and I didn't get very much of a chance to drive it.
I then went another 15 years without a British car, until I woke up at 60-ish years old and decided that it was high time to get back into it. Over the past several years, I have purchased several of the British cars I've dreamed about for decades and enjoyed every one of them: a 1960 Jaguar Mark IX sedan, which is flat-out the coolest looking sedan in the history of all time (and it drives pretty well for a giant car) --- 1959 MGA Twin Cam roadster customized to a be a vintage racer (probably the best performing car I will ever own… and the sexiest) --- and to bring me back to my days of yore, a 1972 MGB in British Racing Green, with all that cool Chrome and a retrofitted 1960s dashboard. The only Brit car of my dreams that I took a pass on was the gorgeous 1954 Sunbeam Alpine – the one that Grace Kelly drove with Cary Grant in “To Catch a Thief”. It's both to rare to find parts for and a bit too unreliable even for a Brit car lover like me. And I'm still considering a Big Healey...
Now all I have to do is keep them in running order, LOL, and fortunately I found a brilliant Brit-car mechanic here on Cape Cod, MA, where I now spend half my time.
My only complaint is there aren't enough cliff roads and steep mountain passes near my garage, but I'm working on that.
Thrilled to join the British Car Forum and share the love, adventures, and – yes - travails.
JoshGee
- 1959 MGA Twin Cam Roadster
- 1960 Jaguar Mark IX Saloon
- 1972 MGB
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