Lawrie-
Your questions do have merit. As far as LeMans goes, it's been almost 40
years since anyone could actually buy and drive on public roads the top-end
racers, if you exclude the Porsche 962 and M-Benz racers of late, but these
were at a cost of about a million dollars each.
Today, the only LeMans race cars you can actually buy in street production
form are the Saleen S7, Corvette, Dodge Viper and the Porsche 911. I have to
chuckle that 3 of the 4 cars are American made. But I digress. I think
Lawrie's point was why couldn't we see an MG the public could buy. Well, for
the '01 race, the 911's would have made an absolute embarrassment out of any
race-prepped MGF in the GT class. Mind you, MG came to LeMans in a really big
hurry with very little time to develop the car. As for me, I would have
preferred MG to be there than not.
As for the LeMans MG race car itself, and the questions of it is a "real" MG
or not should be laid to rest. We need to redefine what an MG is to meet
modern times. The days of MG's flowing out of Abingdon are long, long gone,
and any incarnation of a modern MG will bear little or no resemblance to any
of our cars, the latest models having been introduced in the early 1960's.
I received my latest issue of Automobile magazine today, which provided a
design analysis by Robert Cumberford of the MG Lola EX257. His comments
relating to MG heritage are printed below:
"Rear fender form separate from body as in old MG's"
"Separate (front) fender forms recall MG's of the 1930's"
"Big, spindly spoked wheels recall those on MG TC's"
So there is the opinion from a pro. I guess my question would be, well, what
was the MG raced at LeMans supposed to look like?
Tom
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