British Mini Club Show - Bingley 2012

IF YOU liked the Mini gathering in Llandudno a couple of weeks ago then you'll love these pictures from the British Mini Club Show, held yesterday at Bingley in Staffordshire.

While there parts aplenty for the serious enthusiast, and a chance to meet rally legend Paddy Hopkirk, for me the stars of the show came from the seemingly endless rows of old Minis, in every shape, size, colour and condition you could possibly imagine.

Life On Cars took these pictures at the show:


















For more information, check out the British Mini Club's excellent report on all the winners at the event.

Support classic cars by signing 16,000-strong petition

THE Rover SD1, the Jaguar XJ-S, the Ferrari 512 BB, the Lotus Esprit, the MK1 Golf GTI and a host of other classic cars all have one thing in common.

They're all well over 30 years old but - thanks to laws a new petition is calling for an overhaul of - they're not eligible for any exemptions when it comes to road tax.

Why not? Well, the road tax exemption for old cars goes back to the 1980s, when a rolling rule covering cars over 25 years old was brought in, meaning your car was exempt as soon as it'd survived its first quarter of a century. Unfortunately, New Labour changed the rules in 1998, ending the rolling rule and leaving it so that no classic made after January 1, 1973 was eligible.

I support exemptions for owners of older cars - one of the reasons I can afford to keep a forty-year-old MG on the road is that I'm granted concessions on tax and insurance, in recognition of the fact that classic cars tend to spend their days going to shows and making people smile.

But it's absurd that a new generation of classic cars is being forgotten by this rule, something which at least 16,000 of you have already said you're not happy about by signing the new petition.

As the petition's author, Daryl Davey, puts it:

"History did not simply stop in 1972. These are not cars which are driven everyday but rather on sunny weekends, to attend enthusiast shows etc.

"It is vitally important that we help to preserve this important part of British motoring history."

If more than 100,000 people sign it between now and August 5, the Government will be required to debate the issue in Parliament, giving a glimmer of hope to a new generation of classic car owners.

If you care about keeping a generation of classic cars on the road, sign it now and show the Government what you think...

The Southport car company getting charged up by electric motoring

A SOUTHPORT man has joined forces with a French electric car firm in a bid to encourage businesses across the north west to use more eco-friendly vehicles.

David Cowperthwaite, of Fylde Road, has teamed up with the makers of the Mia electric van in a bid to persuade companies to reduce their carbon footprint, and said that the unusual vehicle has already attracted attention from police forces, local authorities and the Royal Mail.

He has set up the Marshside-based firm TYC Electric Vehicles to help distribute the van in the UK, and told Life On Cars:

“I took the Mia to Liverpool last week to show it to an organisation interested in trying out electric vehicles, and we went down the M57. Even though we did a lot of miles and had the wipers and the lights on at 50mph it just kept on going and kept its charge, so electric vehicles can go a lot longer than people think.

"The organisations that have tried it have been really impressed with its performance and by how quiet it was, although with it being middle-hand-drive quite a few of them couldn't get used to sitting in the middle! The vehicle leaves no carbon footprint at all and you don't have to pay any road tax on it, so companies could save themselves thousands if they ran one over a couple of years instead of a van powered by fossil fuel."

Electrically-powered vans have this week been given a fresh boost by the Government after the Department For Transport announced that they would offer grants to businesses which buy them, which ministers say will save firms as much as £8,000 per vehicle as well as helping to reduce carbon emissions.

Among the organisations which have expressed an interest in the Mia is Merseytravel, who declined to comment but did confirm they had been looking at the vehicle as a possible addition to their fleet in the future.

Transport Minister Norman Baker said: "Electric vehicles are the arrowhead for a low carbon revolution in motoring and as more models come to market we’ll begin to see sales gather pace. Car buyers have had a year to take advantage of our grant and now it’s time for van buyers to get their chance to go electric. This is great news for businesses given the lower running costs of these vehicles – fleet buyers tell us that this is one of the most important factor influencing their decision on what to buy.

“It is radical initiatives like these which will allow us to create a transport system that both cuts carbon and is an engine for economic growth.”

Why I love mild winters

THIS TIME last year the last place you'll have found me was behind the wheel of a classic car.

Winter is cold, wet, slippy and salty, which is exactly why you wouldn't want to venture out in a forty-year-old sports car crafted by the hands of British Leyland. But where last year there was gritting there's now grey skies and drizzle, so tonight I roused the MGB from hibernation and took it to the pub.

It is the polar opposite of the MX-5 which competes for my love and attention. It isn't a masterclass through the corners and nor is it especially fast, but it makes a wonderful noise as it burbles down the back roads.

But to understand why I love it you just have to look at this night shot I took earlier; it is, for want of a better word gorgeous. With perfect proportions, lashings of chrome and the right stance, it's a British sports car to be proud of.

I just hope there isn't a cold snap on the way.

Life is F.A.B if you can afford to customise a Rolls-Royce Ghost

RUMOURS that Lady Penelope - International Rescue's chief representative in the UK - has returned to Rolls-Royce's showrooms have yet to be confirmed.

However, judging by these new images of the company's latest customised model, the Rose Quartz Ghost, it shouldn't be too long before TV fans are treated to a new series of the iconic Sixties action show Thunderbirds.


Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Rolls-Royce CEO, said of the company's new customisation programme:

“It is always our goal to exceed our clients’ highest expectations and fulfill their innermost desires.

"With highly bespoke Phantom and Ghost models, we are able to achieve this. The passion with which our bespoke craftspeople create these beautiful cars is reflected in some truly outstanding examples delivered across the globe last year."


Lady Penelope, of course, was famed for using a pink Rolls Royce in the original Gerry Anderson series, although for the 2004 movie adaptation she switched her loyalties to Ford, using a model based largely on the company's Thunderbird convertible.

The new Porsche Boxster

IT MIGHT still feel like the dead of winter outside but that hasn't stopped Porsche announcing a new version of an open-top sports car favourite.

The Stuttgart supercar makers said the third generation of the Boxster will go on sale this spring with an all-new body, a completely revised chassis and a range of new flat six engines, and as with its two predecessors is hoping to be the keen driver's choice of convertible.

A Porsche spokesman said: "The styling of the new Boxster clearly signals the unique driving experience on offer; with shorter front and rear overhangs, significantly forward-shifted windscreen, a flatter silhouette and expressive edges. Inside, the passengers are enclosed by a new fully electric hood, which now dispenses with a compartment lid for the convertible top when stowed.

"The interior design offers the driver and passenger more space and reflects the new Porsche outline, while the distinctive centre console – originating in the Carrera GT – further improves ergonomics."

The Boxster goes on sale on April 28, with the basic version starting at £37,589 and the Boxster S starting from £45,384.

The old Renault 5, not the new one, is the perfect car for Cameron's Britain

TORIES and Liberal Democrats, look away now. The buzzword I’ve heard most since the establishment of Cameron’s Britain is “austerity”.

Blame who you like but austerity is everywhere, from the library that shut down six months ago to the vacant shops dotting the town centres. The TV screens are awash with anarchic imagery of Greek people burning things and news correspondents looking confused, unsure of which political party or city banker to blame it all on. Everyone knows these are austere times. Except Renault.

The French, you see, are reckoning on a reinvention of the iconic Renault 5 as a way to light up the supermini market in the way the latest Clio and Twingo haven’t, but they’re making the mistake of tilting it squarely at the Citroen DS3. This, in Cameron’s Britain, is a mistake.

I like to think I know a bit about the Renault 5 because I owned one and absolutely loved it. While the fact my very ropey Campus model cost just £100 helped, it really was the archetypal austerity car. Due to the fact it came with absolutely no equipment at all the engineering effort went into making sure the few bits you did get worked perfectly, and even after 120,000 miles it still started on the button every single time. I suspected it’d survive everything up to and including a light nuclear blast.

It was also much, much quicker than an ancient 1.4 hatchback had any right to be and easily the most spacious car I’ve owned. Both, I suspect, down to there being absolutely nothing in the way of luxuries to weigh it down or clutter it up. Prison cells come better equipped these days than the old 5 did.

But the new one, if predictions are right, won’t be a car for peasants and paupers, but a posh one with all sorts of unnecessarily bourgeois equipment like cruise control and electric windows and central locking. In the old one, you were lucky if you got a working heater!

What Cameron’s Britain of spending cuts and soaring unemployment needs isn’t a Renault 5 that’s weighed down with pricey electrical equipment that’ll only break anyway. It needs a real replacement for the old warhorse, which offers cash-strapped families a five star Euro NCAP safety rating – another Renault tradition, don’t forget – and absolutely nothing else so that they too can afford a brand new car.

Then again, even if Renault does bring out a new and rather more decadent reinvention of the 5 it won’t reach us until at least 2014. Maybe they know something about an economic recovery the rest of us don’t?

Charge up the... Mia Electric

THE ingredients would make for a mouth-watering supercar. It is rear-engined and rear-wheel drive, like a 911. The driving position is in the middle, just as it is in a McLaren F1. And it’s all put together by a small French specialist – just like the legions of Venturis, Alpines and Matras car enthusiasts love.

But the recipe is for a small electric van that’s full of surprises.

The Mia – which Life On Cars is one of the first publications in the region to test drive – is a battery-powered load lugger which Brit buyers will be able to order as either a car or a van, and the Franco-German firm which builds them are hoping a warm response over here will help them hit their production target of 10,000 cars a year. The van I tested was small and upright in the vein of, say, the Bedford Rascal beloved of small businesses back in the Eighties, but clock the smooth contours and you realise that’s where the similarities end.

Once you get used to that central driving position you realise the interior’s got all the gadgets you’d expect but is still sparsely laid out – if anything, it reminded me of the Lotus Elise, which also has a dashboard limited to a simplistic bar running across the cabin. It might not have been the last word in luxury, but I liked it.

Yet what really impressed was the way it drove, which is far better than you’d expect an electrically-propelled city slicker to manage. The steering was a little on the light side but I actually enjoyed the oomph offered up the little Mia, while the easy-going ride and the tidy handling will keep your passengers on either side happy. You almost forget that you’re limited to a top speed of 60mph.

Admittedly, it costs £20,000 – the same as a decently-specced Ford Transit – and only does 80 miles on a charge but I get where the Mia is coming from. If you’re one of those small businesses who raved about the Rascal then I reckon you’d love one of these, because it offers up the same sort of cargo space, it’s cheap to run, a doddle to park and makes other motorists look because it’s cute. If all you do are deliveries around town then the Mia’s a capable and eco-friendly contender for your cash.

It’s also – with the going rate for a secondhand McLaren F1 soaring into the millions – probably the only middle-hand-drive car I’ll ever test.

2012 Ormskirk MotorFest wins backing of councillors

A 2012 Ormskirk MotorFest is one step closer to revving into action after West Lancashire councillors voted tonight to give it their support.

At a cabinet meeting at West Lancashire Borough Council – situated a stone’s throw from the MotorFest street circuit route – plans to support another event and to grant it funding to the tune of £17,500 were given the green light, paving the way for hundreds of classic cars and motorbikes to visit the market town for a second time.

Ormskirk councillor Adrian Owens, the borough council’s deputy leader, said at the meeting:

“I fully support the idea of another Ormskirk MotorFest. As an Ormskirk councillor, I saw that it was a great success.

“Here is an event which brought 10,000 people into the town, and while we should look for additional sponsors to help cover the costs of such an event I believe it is one the council should fully support.”

The £17,500 funding will be provided by the council to Aintree Circuit Club, who organised last year’s MotorFest and are keen to build on that event’s success for 2012.

Although the council has now lent its support to the Ormskirk MotorFest being held again a definite date has yet to be announced, although provisions have already been put in place to hold the event on the August Bank Holiday weekend, similar to the inaugural event last year.

Life On Cars, which in August 2010 was the first motoring website to reveal details of the inaugural MotorFest, produced an offically-backed magazine to help accompany the event.

What do you think? Let us know if you’re looking forward to a 2012 Ormskirk MotorFest by leaving a comment below.

Fear and fun on The Horseshoe Pass

IT WAS with a particularly potent blend of apprehensiveness that I approached one of my all-time favourite roads yesterday.

On the way to the Mini show in Llandudno I ventured onto the wonderful bit of winding tarmac that is the Horseshoe Pass, which after an agonisingly long climb from the picturesque town of Llangollen takes you to one of the most stunning bits of scenery you'll find anywhere in North Wales. Only this time, I was more than a little nervous.


Only days earlier it'd been the scene of a tragic accident in which two people had been killed, which served as stark reminder that while a good road is great fun, it's deadly in the wrong conditions at the wrong speeds, and with it being such a cold day the threat of black ice was never far away. Nor was my weapon of choice for tackling it the best for a greasy winter run; while my MX-5, on new tyres, was no longer scarily skittish, the relative unfamiliarity meant I'd be taking it very easy on the way up.

Yet taken properly I can understand why the bikers love the Horseshoe as much as they do; it really is an awe-inspiring journey. With the Mazda behaving itself I could drop the roof, take in the crisp mountain air, and enjoy what really is some wonderful scenery.


Every year I always pull in at the same spot at the top for the obligatory, badly-taken smartphone snap, and it amazed me how different conditions at different times of year can completely change the same setting. Twelve months ago I ventured up there in my old Rover and was met with wet 'n' wild weather on a dark, grey day, while a few months before that I was in a brand new MX-5 and pulled up in a scene from The Italian Job. Yesterday, in my much, much older Mazzer, the steely blue skies and relentless low sunlight made for a different atmosphere again.

It is an endlessly enjoyable part of the world if you love cars and driving but as I pointed the MX-5's pop-up lights towards Ruthin I couldn't shake the feeling that that car and those roads had so much more to offer.


Roll on summer...

Mini Wirral to Llandudno Run 2012

SCORES of small car fans descended on North Wales this weekend to show off a host of classic Minis in the seaside resort of Llandudno.

Life On Cars wrapped up warm, headed for the seaside and took these pictures of classic Minis galore for you to enjoy....
















Have you got a classic car event you'd like to promote? Get in touch with Life On Cars at david.simister@hotmail.co.uk

Prepare to fire up the... Dacia Duster

YOU'D be forgiven for thinking the small, no-nonsense off-roader is a dying breed, but at least one company's determined to bring it back.

Rewind the clock back 20 years and there were plenty of options for anyone needing to head into the countryside without the budget for a Land Rover, but the likes of the Suzuki Samurai, the Daihatsu Fourtrak and the Lada Niva are long gone. Dacia, however, are banking on bucking the trend with a modern alternative to spearhead their return to the UK market later this year, and are hoping hardy rural tyes are going to reckon their Duster 4x4 is rugged enough for the rough stuff.

A spokesman for the company has said that since its launch on the continent two years ago its carved a niche for itself, and said:

“Since its launch in April 2010, Dacia's off-road model – the sixth model in the Dacia line-up – has enjoyed tremendous success in all the countries where it is marketed. It is available with 4x4 or 4x2 transmission and combines unbeatable cabin space for its price with genuine off-road ability, while the model's diesel versions are particularly CO2-efficient.

”Dacia Duster is as much a functional buy as it is a leisure purchase, and it has lost no time carving out a real market for itself since launch.“

The Romanian company is owned by Renault and is marketed as the French giant's budget brand, in much the same way that Skoda already offers us Volkswagen know-how in a cut-price package. In fact, it's Skoda which is likely to present Dacia with the Duster's biggest challenge, with the Czech company's Yeti already offering similiar off-road ability on the 4x4 versions.

However Dacia could pull it off if the predicted £11,000 entry price proves right when it arrives in Britain in October, which is half what you'd pay for an entry-level Land Rover Defender. The Duster isn't going to win any prizes for prestige or originality, but if a no-nonsense off-roader at a no-nonsense price would make perfect sense for plenty of rural motorists.

Could the Geely Emgrand EC7 be 2012's most boring car?

FORGET counting sheep, slurping cups of hot chocolate and coaxing yourself into warm baths. The cure for insomnia now comes in handy automotive form.

I am, for all sorts of reasons, someone who can't drift off easily, spending the small hours of the morning wondering why everyone else is snoring away. However, I'm hoping that by sticking a poster of the new Geely on my bedroom wall that I'll be granted an express season ticket to The Land of Nod.

The Emgrand EC7 will be the Chinese carmaker's first UK offering when it arrives later this year, and while I haven't driven one I'm sure there's plenty going for it. It does, for instance, offer you a roomy four-door saloon at the £10,000 entry price for most superminis, along with a five year, 100,000 mile warranty and generous equipment levels. It might even be fantastically good fun to drive.

But I can't see myself joining the queue of potential buyers because it is - for want of a better word - boring. It is about as memorable as a cloud on a cloudy day or a witticism delivered from the lips of Iain Duncan Smith. Aesthetically - and remember, lots of people do buy cars on the way they look - it is just a grey shape on some alloy wheels, livened up only by a styling slash in the front doors. I've been looking at a picture of one for most of the past week, and I still can't remember what it looks like.

I can see the Geely selling strongly, but to boring people who “only buy a car because they want something that'll get from A to B”, which is motoring shorthand for “I couldn't be bothered to check anything else out”. You know who you are.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be one of those people with a downer on anything Oriental who begins every dinner party conversation with the words “I don't want to sound racist, but...”. There are all sorts of interesting cars which come from the Far East, like the Toyota IQ, the Hyundai Coupe, the Honda Jazz and the Suzuki Kizashi.

It's just that the Emgrand isn't one of them.

2012 Ormskirk MotorFest: the latest

WEST Lancashire councillors will next week decide whether to give plans to revive the Ormskirk MotorFest a £17,500 boost.

Last month The Champion revealed that members of the borough council's cabinet will discuss whether the Ormskirk MotorFest, which attracted thousands of visitors over the August Bank Holiday last year, should be held again in the hope of repeating the economic boost the market town enjoyed as a result of last year's inaugural event.

Now a report presented to cabinet members is recommending that the local authority gives organisers Aintree Circuit Club £17,500 to help cover the costs of a repeat event, with a decision set to be made on holding another event next Tuesday (January 17).

The report, which also suggests using commercial sponsorship to help offset costs, reads:

"The recent MotorFest helped significantly raise the profile of Ormskirk both regionally and nationally. The MotorFest presented the opportunity for the Council to be involved in a ‘good news' event that was well received by both the local / business communities and the event participants.

"If the event were proposed to be held again in 2012 then negotiations, decisions and appropriate funding would need to be in place fairly quickly in order to give a workable lead in time for good event planning. The successful running of the
first event has helped provide a good template for the organisation and delivery of any future events."

The first Ormskirk MotorFest event, which was held on August 28, was hailed ”an outstanding success“ by the borough council after an estimated 10,000 people visited the town to see more than 200 classic cars and motorcycles in a series of parades and displays, but while the cabinet report recommends giving a repeat event the green light no firm decision has yet been made on whether to repeat the event.

The decision is expected to be made by cabinet members next Tuesday night at the council's headquarters in Ormskirk.

How to spend £100 to stay alive

A GIRL I USED to go out with a long time ago had a very particular aversion to chocolate.

She was - for someone not even remotely interested in cars - a lovely lass, but presented with even the smallest, crumliest smidgen of Cadbury's Flake she'd always retort the same mantra, which I've heard countless women retort since. A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.

I reckon anyone into cars should adopt a similar chant when it comes to cornering; a moment on the bend, a lifetime on the mend. In other words, skimping on the right tyres can be the difference between being a master of the mountain roads and being the sorry soul who ends up in a field. As I've just discovered with probably the wisest £100 I've ever spent.

Until yesterday I had a set of Camacs - possibly the worst tyres ever made, despite being completly road legal, officer - performing the not-at-all daunting task of getting the power from my Mazda MX-5's rear wheels onto the road, and they were at best hilariously hopeless and at worst life-threateningly dangerous. For barely controllable oversteer at 15mph, just add water.

You might think tyres are just boring rings of rubber that you reluctantly slap on every 15,000 miles or so but the difference between my old ditch-finders and the brand new Toyos I've replaced them with is profound. It is, in non car speak, the difference between venturing up Snowdon in trainers and doing the job properly in a set of walking boots.

Despite being the same size, shape and material, the Toyos find grip where the Camacs wouldn’t, particularly in the greasy, wet, muddy conditions you’re likely to encounter in most corners at this time of the year. You can, courtesy of your right foot and a healthy dose of foolhardiness, still get the MX-5 seriously sideways if you want to, but no longer does it threaten to kill you every time you approach a damp roundabout.

Nor, by the way, are the benefits of pukka tyres restricted to the world of powerful rear-wheel-drivers; last year I swapped the ancient Dunlops on my old Mini for a set of sticky new Yokohamas, and in an instant it pulled away, handled and stopped better. I reckon if all blokes took tyres as seriously as a certain other type of rubber, there'd be far fewer instances of cars spinning off into lamposts and ploughing into ditches.

If there's one thing in motoring that's emphatically not worth skimping on, it's tyres. A moment on the bend, remember, is a lifetime on the mend.

Fire up the... Suzuki Kizashi

THERE is, thanks to mankind's obsession with pigeonholing absolutely everything, a distinct heirachy when it comes to buying a new car.

Whether it's the new Mclaren at the very top end of the motoring marketplace, or the parsimonious Nissan Pixo at the bottom, everything is divided up into convenient classes and segments, so that any particular car is roughly the same size and shape as the ones it's competing against. Anything that breaks the rules just confuses Britain's notoriously fussy buyers.

So can Suzuki's Kizashi, which the Japanese are considering bringing to our shores, carve a niche? It is, after all, an unusual prospect; a Mondeo-style saloon that's smaller than a Mondeo, or an Insignia, or indeed any of the mid-range repmobiles usually found lurking on the outside lanes of Britain's motorways. It honestly could go either way, being either usefully smaller when it comes to parking and navigating the urban jungle, or not as capacious when you call on it to be a cargo freighter. Whatever you make of it, it's a bit bigger than, say, Volkswagen's Jetta but not quite the full Passat.

What it does do though is a passable impression of Doctor Who's TARDIS, because while its smaller exterior does translate into an air of agility from behind the wheel, your passengers in the back seats will swear they've stepped into a larger car. The interior might be a little darker than I'd like, thanks to the black materials used throughout, but boy is it spacious.

It also carries off the clever trick of looking a bit like every other contemporary saloon you've clapped eyes on - the front's got a hint of Golf to it, and the side profile a hint of Mondeo, but again that's not a bad thing.

Expect to pay £21,995 for the automatic, four-wheel-drive version they're bringing to this country's roads, and while I can't see it wiping out the Mondeo's dominance there's definitely a gap in the marketplace for this kind of car.

If you're looking for a sturdy saloon which is a smidgen smaller than the rest of the pack, go and start pestering your local dealer for it.

Why the little Austin Seven is worth celebrating in 2012

THE Austin Seven - and I know I'm going out on a limb on this one - is the most significant motor ever made in a British factory.

It's officially now 2012 which means people with boiler suits and beards will be getting the party poppers out for a couple of cars celebrating significant anniversaries this year; everything from the AC Cobra, which reaches its half century, my own MGB GT, for which life begins at 40, and even the Ford Cortina, which first rolled out of the showrooms 50 years ago this year.

But it's the curious little Seven- a creation that'll be a staggering 90 years old this year - that I reckon should be the one worth celebrating, because the impact it's had on British motoring is still being felt to this day.

It's well documented that it effectively did for us what the Model T Ford did for the Americans, but did you know that it was the first small car that had all the controls where we'd expect to find them today? No messing about with two gearlevers or four pedals for your feet - just good, honest and easy to drive, like a Polo or a Fiesta.

Austin might be long gone but the car companies it inspired aren't; a lavishly-trimmed version, called the Swallow, eventually proved to be the ancestor to all of today's Jaguars, Lotus founder Colin Chapman cut his teeth by modifying old Austins, and Alec Issigonis - the man behind the Morris Minor and the Mini - first wowed the motoring world with a racing car based loosely on a Seven.

I know it's hard to imagine in 2012 a boxy, cramped, noisy and slow old vintage car being particularly good at anything but then in the old days, when everyone had TB and lived in black and white, Austin wasn't up against other cars. You either bought one of those or you bought a horse, and it's because of this that the Seven got oridinary Brits off their saddles and behind their steering wheels for the very first time.

You might not be that impressed with the Seven, but you can bet your great grandparents were.

Video: MGB GT

I COULDN'T help but smile when one my favourite cars - my 1972 MGB GT - got some fan mail earlier today.

The car's previous owners sent an email to The Champion office to let me know they regularly read the updates on a thoroughly traditional and very British sports car I've been proud to own for the last 18 months, and it's for them that I include a video of the car in action.

An extract from their email reads:

Mr Simister,

You will be surprised, and I hope, pleased to learn that we follow your reports of "our" MGB and have compiled an archive simply because we are delighted that you gain so much pleasure from the car.I could not have wished for a better outcome; passing the car to someone who is really thrilled to own it.

Our friends look out for it and report "sightings". The previous owner, Alison, thinks we are mad...........but then she did not have the car as part of the family for 20 years!!

To which I've replied...


Thanks for your kind email and hope you had a good Christmas and an enjoyable New Year.

I'm delighted that you're still following the progress on the MGB. I am, as I'm sure you've probably gathered, absolutely smitten with it. Since its return to the road it's been on numerous runs into the West Lancashire countryside and was an entrant into the Ormskirk MotorFest last August; at the moment it's being treated to a new exhaust, fuel tank and stereo system, but when it comes out of winter hibernation one of my aims is to take it on the official MGB 50th anniversary run in Gaydon this April.

I'll have a look for a back copy of the magazine for you but in the meantime I'm happy to enclose a copy of the video, which I filmed a few weeks ago (before I fitted the new exhaust, incidentally). The video can be seen here:

The MGB will be back on the road once the sun comes out again, so I'm sure your friends will report plenty more sightings in the coming weeks!

More updates on Bridget, as I call her, to follow soon...