A question that has been asked from time to time, now (info from Top Gear)
there is a web site giving the numbers for UK cars licensed or notified as
being off-road from 1994 to 2011 based on government data. This doesn't
include cars that have been off-road since before 31st January 1998. Since
that date a car must either be taxed, taken out of use and notified as such,
scrapped and notified as such, or possibly exported and notified as such, the
first two remaining on the database, the second two not. So each reduction in
numbers over the period is almost certainly a car having been scrapped (or
exported), in fact it's probably more than that as a few may well be coming
back on the road, having been off since before the above date.
For the MGB (search for MG B) it shows 11271 in 1994, rising to 14156 in 1999
(i.e. 3000-odd coming back on the road in that time), then a steady decline to
10453 in 2011. For the GT it's 19498 in 1994, then a more or less steady (and
significant) decline to 8168 in 2011. For the GT V8 it was 710 in 1994,
fairly steady until 2000, then a decline to 414 in 2011.
Some of these are a bit surprising to me - like the significantly higher
number of GTs in 1994. Perhaps not so surprising is the much greater decline
in GT numbers - halving - since 2000. Also surprising is the decline in
genuine V8 numbers given the interest in conversions. The Government
scrappage scheme which started in May 2009 doesn't seem to have made a huge
difference, I'm glad to say.
Current numbers for other MGs also available of course, just 5 Magnette
(Farina), but then there were only 9 in 1994 anyway. Perhaps unsurprisingly
the MG Maestro and Metro have suffered the greatest decline, with the
exception of the Metro 6R4 which is only one fewer, albeit having gone up by
13 and down by 14 over the period. There doesn't appear to be a single MG
Montego.
http://howmanyleft.co.uk/?q=mg+b
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