I think the best way to guess the price of an MGB today would be to compare
it to the price for a Miata now. Its is very hard to compare car prices
backwards and forwards like that. In the 60's a car that was three years old
was in most cases well and truly shot. No american car was certainly worth a
damn over 75,000 miles. They were cheap and had low quality. Now we make
much better quality cars the last a hell of a lot longer. But they also cost
a great deal more, with the average middle class family no longer replscing
thier csr every two or three years.
My favorite advertisment is as as-seen on the back of an old MGB Driver
issue. I no longer have it, but the prices for the Midget MG1100 MGB and MG
Magnette were listed. The cheapest car was the basic sidescreens and rubber
floored Midget, then the MG 1100 (the best selling car platform in Britain
back then), the MGB and the Magnette. The MG 1100 was a truly advanced
little automobile, especially compared to the truly antique-even when
new-Midget. The Magnette, when fully equiped with an automatic transmission
radio and rimbellishers cost one half more again than the MGB. The Magnette
is in the $30,000 near-luxury class today... which put the MGB at about
$20,000 which is what a decent Miata costs and thus we run full circle.
So if we had to buy a MGB today it would be abuot $20,000.
But, I don't expect BMW to produce an MGB. They will make a super-B of
some sort in a higher price market. The MG name I don't think means cheap
and cheerful to most people any more. In fact its been out of the American
lexicon for so many years that MG could mean anything BMW wants it to mean.
I think MG will come back as a premium high quality sporty-car maker. They
will also have some front wheel drive sedans. The sports cars will all be
RWD. We already know the next MGF replacement will not be mid-engined, so we
can drop that thought from the start, it will be a BMW Z based car which
should make it rather nice. I think that BMW has a strong leaning towards
making 'image cars' like the Rover 75 and the car James Bond just drove (but
got sliced in half, HA!). BMW is also masters of building car in small
quantities at a profit. It is truly a unique ability among large
manufacturers. BMWs abilities and thier past suggest we can see some sort of
very special limited production Super-MG in the future. It would be almost
certainly BMW engined.
Lets be happy though that BMW is in control and not say Ford. For as
nice as the are, JAguars are boulevardiares. Now it would be nice to have a
four seat MG convertible like a YT again, but we need most of all a two seat
sports car.... HEY NEW THREAD... THE RECCOMENDED MG PRODUCT LINE UP
John
John Elwood
Visit The World's Greatest Site Devoted to Farina Magnettes:
http://www.mgcars.org.uk/farina
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