~ > Well, it's time for me to limit my compromises.
~ > relatively fixed price range (I'm hoping to go over $5K but I'm
~
~ That's still pretty low.
Yep, so low I'm thinking seriously about banking the majority of
that, spending most of the rest trimming and tidying The Green Car,
and waiting till spring '95 when my royalty check arrives. (Yes,
check; it's weird, but the publisher pays once annually for the
previous year's sales. Not an easy way to live, but it does help
support -- or if sales are good, purchase -- old sports cars.)
~ According to yerself, that buys an MGB, either
~ complete now, or the parts to make it that way.
Eee-zackly. And what was it that Dorothy said about not looking
for happiness any farther than her own back yard?
~ (You didn't say you wanted a
~ project, that really costs more anyhow.)
HEY EVERYONE: LISTEN TO THIS MAN! That's the hardest lesson for
so many people to learn. A $1500 MGB will in all likelihood cost
far more than a $5000 MGB, assuming that both are in the same
condition after three years or so.
~ > don't *need* this car, except in the deepest recesses of my soul.
~
~ Good. We can be somewhat impractical.
Somewhat? As I hope I've clarified later on, I *want* this car to
be wildly impractical. I want something that makes us all stand
around "silent, upon a peak in Darien," as Keats says about a
rather different Chapman.
~ I might have suggested this, as you can find them well under $10K. (And a
~ roadster for a little above.) Along the same lines, there was recently a
~ Daverian for sale- an Elanish roadster, built in Wales, with an Imp engine
~ at the rear.
I *like* the Stiletto, for instance -- the production "sporty"
version of the Hillman Imp. Davrians are weird enough for me,
I could cope with them.
Somehow I've discovered several interesting facts. I am, far more
so than I had previously known or acknowledged, *seriously* bent for
little Italian coupes. Wrong list, I know. And by little, I don't
mean Ferraris -- it's easy to love a Ferrari. I like Abarths, Morettis,
Giaurs, Stanguellinis, Erminis -- the class that used to be somewhat
derisively known as "etceterini" in the Fifties. I even like the
little Fiat 850 Sport Coupe -- better than the 850 Spyder, which is
an irrational attraction I have from time to time.
~ As long as we're mentioning Imp power, I'll throw in Ginetta G15. They book
~ cheap, in street form, it's just a bit hard to find one in North America.
~ There were a bunch sent to the California, that were fitted with VW Bug
~ engines, which you might dig up.
I've seen one. Interesting, doesn't light me up, though. The G4, now...
(I *think* it's the G4. I read that whole book cover to cover over the
weekend, Steve, and my head is full of impossibly weird little cars.)
~ Ray Gibbons states a couple:
~ > MGTC. There has *never* been a car before or since that looked so exactly
~ > right for its purpose, to the extent you can say an MGTC has a purpose.
Of *course* it has a purpose: Looking Right.
~ I will dispute this! First, the TC looks almost exactly the same as the TA
~ and TB before it. But, the "uncommon" criteria rules out any T-series MG's
~ right off the bat.
Not after having seen one... The TC is *right* on the money. It's
just that the money it's on is so high... there's one here for sale
at $20K. Not this year...
~ Second, I've heard it said that an MG PA/PB looks "more
~ right" than the later TA/B/C, and I would certainly agree. :-)
Well, they're okay, but they're not a patch on the J2. THAT is the
actual role model; the rest of the cars just got bigger since then.
The only changes to come along for the P Series was to make them
more practical. Feh. :-) (Actually, there's a guy in the area who
has a J2; I occasionally see it at meets. It's like a 5/8 scale TC,
and explains why they used to call them Midgets. I *love* that car.)
~ How's that for a start?
Now, if someone were to sell a reasonably priced, authentic period
reproduction of one of the glassfibre Spridget bodies, that would be
acceptable too. A WSM-Sprite, for instance, or even a Sprinzel body,
or one of M.G.'s own Sebring Midget coupes (mini-250 SWB Ferrari lines!),
or best of all one of the Falcon-bodied roadsters. Those are my
favorites, little rounded fenders and low cut-down doors and scuttle.
But I'm afraid that all those glass-bodies Sprites have gone on to
become parts cars and heaps of lung-destroying glass dust by now.
Hmmm. Then again, Geoff Healey says he has the drawings from which
he can make TFR6, hoping he'll get the chance again. THAT would be
a joy as well, preferably without the targa roof. Hmmmm indeed.
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