Barney,
I want to thank you and everyone else who has ever written or told me a
story like this. My dad started me on MGs when I was about seven. He
gave me my 71 Roadster, which he had bought for $400. As I grew up I
worked on the car when I could and did whatever I could figure out. I
finished the car just before my sixteenth birthday and it became my daily
car for good weather. The MG club that we were involved in babyed their
cars. Many of these guys had the kind of money in a B that it would take
to make a show winning A or T, so I never learned what the cars could
really do. I always drove hard and have had my share of single car
incedents to show for it, but the storries I hear about some of the cars
on this list make me feel like I baby my car. I have never won a show in
my car, and probably never will, but I am very proud of the fact that I
restored the whole thing before I was 16 for less than $1500. I still
have less than that invested in the car today.
Having grown up in a time where nearly everyone drives new cars, and takes
them to the shop when they need anything, I have a hard time believing
just how much abuse these cars can take. My car is tough, but I have
always looked at it as also being very fragile, and I am constantly being
reminded that it isn't. The guys that really beat on their cars are a
huge inspiration, and a reminder of what these cars were intended to be.
As I child my dad and I would go to the T register events, but at the time
I couldn't appreciate just how hard those guys drove those cars.
So to everyone on the list that drives them like they were meant to be
driven, and then tells us about it. Thank you so much for showing me what
these cars are really capable of, and what they were really designed to
do.
James Nazarian
'71 B roadster
'71 BGT rust free and burnt orange
'63 Buick 215
"Aerodynamics are for people who cannot build engines"
Enzo Ferrari
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