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Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 07:56:55 -0500 (EST)
From: DNESS@delphi.com
Subject: Re: British Cars Digest #1103 Mon Feb 14 17:40:20 MST 1994
Friends,
I had posted a message a few weeks ago regarding a really good parts contact:
His name is Richard Burger from Maine-ly MG's, I believe that he gets his
parts from Victoria British and Moss as well. The big difference here is
that he gets incredible discounts as he buys massive amounts of parts from
them, he passes this discount along to anyone who orders through him ( I
think he is trying to get some award for largest purchaser ). I believe
that he can probabally get you everything that you need, not only for MG's
but for anything that Victoria and Moss carries at discounted rates. He can
also have these shipped directly to your door from the factory. As far as
defects and backorders go, they try to take care of him as much as possible
due to the importance of his business. Feel free to give him a call or fax.
He is planning to get online within the next month or so, hopefully. This
then welcomes the possibility of communicating via E-Mail.
Maine-ly MG's
Richard Burger
176 Lincoln St.
Bangor, Maine 04401
phone (207)945-6823
fax (207)945-3518
Give him a call, I think you will be pleasantly suprised, if you have any
questions you can E-Mail me for the time being until he gets online.
DNESS@DELPHI.COM
Cheers!
Dan
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Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 11:05:53 PST
From: sfisher@Megatest.COM (Scott Fisher)
Subject: AutoWeek Reader Fax Poll
This week, AutoWeek is holding a reader's fax poll asking the
question:
Should BMW revive the MG [sic] marque and put it on a roadster
for sale in the US?
Most of you can imagine what my response was, but if you can't,
or if you'd just like to read it anyway, here's the fax I sent.
If Pieschetrieder takes me up on this, Bay Area SOLs will be
hearing about it soon enough...
- --Scott
- ---------------text of fax follows-----------------
Date: February 15, 1994
To: Autoweek Readers' Fax Poll
Subject: Should BMW revive the M.G. marque?
Answer: YES.
However, they must come to understand what they have inherited,
which is more than just "the name with the greatest brand recognition
in the world," in the words of the Wall Street Journal when BL ceased
building M.G.s and demolished the factory in 1980. A new M.G. built
by BMW must inspire -- and also permit -- the kind of driver involvement
that has always set M.G. owners apart, while also catering to the modern
expectations of reliability and performance. A new M.G. must be light,
nimble, responsive, predictable, and fun. A new M.G. must carry on the
tradition of feeling like a machine, with honest mechanical responses
to the gear lever, the brakes, and the steering. Above all, a new
M.G. must not isolate the driver and passenger (singular) from the
feeling of being part of the world through which they pass, rather
than being a cocooned observer in a capsule of steel.
As a long-time owner, restorer, racer of and writer about M.G.s, I have
spent many hours wishing that some firm with the right vision, resources,
and -- to use a word out of Hemingway -- aficion would acquire the marque
and revive it. Merely building performance versions of saloons is not
reviving the marque. To revive it requires an understanding of its soul.
To that end, I'd like to invite Bernd Pischetsrieder to the San Francisco
Bay Area, where I'm actively involved with local British marque clubs (not
only the M.G. Owner's Club, but also Morgan, Triumph, and AC) and
competition drivers, to talk with him about what a new M.G. must be.
With a little advance preparation, I'd like to arrange a chance for him
to see and drive some restored examples, some competition examples, and
some original examples on not only the best roads in the world for M.G.s,
but also possibly on an autocross track. What makes M.G.s special is not
their numerical, statistical characterization, but the sympathy that the
machinery always had for the character of its owners. It's that sympathy
that I can explain, or better yet arrange for Herr Pischetsrieder to
experience first-hand, whether among the redwoods of the Donald Healey
Memorial Grove in Big Basin or between the pylons at a Solo II.
I'd also like to devote the last paragraphs of this fax to a query letter
to your editors. I'd like to give you a few hundred words (500 or so) on
what the new M.G. must be, from both a technical and a passionate
standpoint. The article would suggest ways of broadening the market
appeal without diluting the car's spirit, on doing the most with the
fewest resources (which has been part of the M.G. appeal for over 60
years), and on ways to avoid disappointing those of us -- whom I feel
competent to represent -- who have been keeping the faith for the last
15 years. In short, I believe it's possible, at least for a company
with the technical and financial resources of BMW, to make an M.G. that
would appeal both to the Miata owner (a car I like; I won my first
autocross in a Miata) and to those of us with an old M.G. in the garage
for sunny Sunday afternoons.
My writing credits speak for themselves. I've been a professional writer
since 1980, specializing in computers and electronics. For the past five
years I've written a weekly restaurant review for the San Jose Mercury News;
in 1993 I wrote a number of feature articles on automobiles as well,
including one on autocrossing and one on driver's roads in the Santa
Cruz mountains. My new book, Multimedia Authoring: Building and
Developing Documents (AP Professional), will be in bookstores by March 1,
and contains an Apple HyperCard stack (on an enclosed diskette) that
demonstrates the principles of multimedia design -- but that does so
with an interactive look at the structure and maintenance of the MGB
(including what I am sure is the first multimedia guide to synchronizing
SU carburetors, a subject that makes much more sense when you can hear
them in operation). As for my automotive experience, I chased my regional
SCCA license in an E Production MGB. I'm an avid and modestly successful
autocrosser (only one off-podium finish since 1991) in the very competitive
San Francisco Region, and an active participant of the Internet's British
Cars computer mailing list, a "virtual club" comprising members from
around the world.
Please consider the query, and count this as an enthusiastic YES vote for
what I've taken to calling the MGBMW.
Sincerely,
Scott Fisher
1244 Heatherstone Way
Sunnyvale, California 94087
(408) 736-3124
Internet: sfisher@megatest.com
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