>>>>Carol initially wrote:
> I saw an MGC V8 today... actually saw it before.... It has 1969
license
> plates on it.
>
> So... when were MGC's first produced? When was MGB production halted?
Robert Allen <boballen@sky.net> wrote in eply:
An MGC with a V8? What blasphemy! What sacrilege! What a hack!
Was it for sale? Did it look cool? Who's V8? Enquiring minds want to
know!
MGCs were around for about 2 years. Examples were titled in late '67,
all
of '68, and through most of '69.<<<<<
Not the first time by a long chalk. Back in the 'seventies, the late
Chris Harvey built an MGC V8 roadster, which features on the cover of
his book of the period. The MGC enthusiasts didn't like it, and neither
did the more purist members of the MGB GT V8 clan (I do not count myself
among the originality-at-all-costs brigade). I've seen a very nice MGC
V8 roadster at the MGCC Silverstone meeting once or twice. One has to be
careful to distinguish between an MGB with a V8 engine and an MGC bonnet
to cover the carbs - not the same as an MGC V8 of course.
There is room for some intelligent speculation that Abingdon might have
built an MGC V8 as early as 1970 if things had panned out differently.
You see, the big-six was dead in the water from the outset (sorry if
that is hard to swallow, but it is sadly true - it was an unloved
ill-breathing cast-iron lump even if its heart was in the right place;
the all-alloy racing MGC GTS engine would have a much better prospect).
Even before the BL merger, but after the BMC-Jaguar marriage that
fostered BMH, the Austin-Morris people wanted to ditch the big six in
favour of something else - they briefly looked at the Turner-designed
Daimler V8 as one option.
Then when BL was formed, the whole Austin-Morris side of the business
came under close scrutiny, and the Austin 3-litre - for which the big
six was primarily intended - was identified as a white elephant. Harry
Webster had taken control of A-M, and he instigated the fitting of the
Rover V8 engine into an Austin 3-Litre, re-badged as a Wolseley. At
least one prototype was built - which Webster drove - but Rover, Triumph
and Jaguar factions within BL didn't want such a car competing with
them, and using up limited Rover V8 engine supplies.
Had the V8 Wolseley not been abandoned, there is scope to postulate that
with its creation, and the abandonment of the 3-litre engine application
in the Austin, the MGC would have quickly become a car without an
engine. It is feasible that the quickest way to solve this might have
been to shoehorn the V8 into the MGC - and so we might have had an MGC
V8.
As it was, the MGC was in production 1967-1969, and the MGB GT V8 from
1973 to 1976 - the latter (much as I love the car) was far too little,
too late. But then our favourite cars don't have to be perfect for us to
love 'em!
DAVID KNOWLES
(1974 MGB GT V8 & 1980 MGB + non MG trash)
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