Remember your first
car? I do, and this is it. A white 1967 MGB Roadster
with wire wheels, and red leather interior. Cool. What
a great first car. In some ways, it was my true "first
love" of British Cars (there are those two sacred, capitilized
words again!)
What other British
Car evokes the spirit of Britian more than MG? It is truely the
company that brought the sports car to America and introduced
the gentleman's "sports car" to the masses. Like it's
capitalized parent of "British Cars", MG deserves to
be capitalized. Perhaps above all other British Cars, the MG
has a special place in my heart and in the hearts of a lot
of other entusiasts.
My first MG was a beauty
that, while having seen better days, was still a pretty nice car.
I was the third owner, and the car was not quite five years old
with 58,000 miles on the clock. I bought it from this college
student that was attending Santa Rosa Junior College. This
fellow was a hippy wanna-be and apparently did not know anything
about cars. I bought this steed for the high price of $850.
Overall, the car was in good shape, no rust, no major leaks,
good (folding) top and matching red tonneau cover to match the
red leather seats. Ah, but the seams and the seats were
seperating and the original carpets had long ago given up the
ghost. But the really cool thing (for a 16 year old lad)
was that it had a glass pack instead of the stock muffler. If
you know the "B" engine, it has a very distinctive "blatty"
sound that sounds good to any MGB enthusiast. The glass pack
just amplified the music a touch!
I had some great times
in that car. Not only did I have the perfect car a 16 year
old could have, but I drove it in the best sports car country
in the world--Sonoma, Napa, and Mendocino Counties. Entire
magazine articles have been written in Road & Track and other
sports car guides about the pleasures of these roads. From the
grandour of the Redwood Forests, the twisties only the rocky
coast of Highway 1, the "Redwood Highway", Route 101 up through
Sonoma to Mendocino County and Willits, or transversing the
vineyards of Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley,
or the rich rolling vineyards by the Russian River...all in
an MGB Convertible! Oh to be 16 again!
Before we wax too
nostolgic on the joys of youth, there were some bumps in
the road! When I bought the car, I thought I'd "give it
the royal treatment", and took it into the lube bay of the
Chevron Station I worked at, and in my spare time on a
slow night, did a complete lube and oil change of the car,
rotated the tires (ever experience how hard wire wheel
spinners are to get off?!?) and out in new plugs, rotor,
cap, and points. Next night I set the dwell and adjusted the
valves, and that weekend, tuned the SU carburators up a tad.
The car ran like a top.
Well one of the cardinal
rules of the Zen of British Car maintenance manuals, grasshopper,
is to read the shop manual. In my zeal to to replace the fluids,
I neglected to check the correct weight for the transmission
gear oil, and put in the "rack" weight oil from the lube room
gear oil dispenser, instead of the required weight
for the gearbox. Well about 3-4 weeks later I started to hear
a constant grinding sound from the tranny. Two weeks after that,
the sound was unbearable. With the help of my best friend,
Bob Keyes and his Dad, we pulled the engine out in my garage
and took the tranny to Sabatini's British Cars (where I used
to be a lot boy--see the story on the Europa). About $650
later I had my transmission back. Ouch. OK, car care
is something that you have to be knowledgeable about. I'll
never make that mistake again! But in retrospect, I look
back and laugh at the memory, and of those warm nights with the
top down under the stars, crusing through moist hills of
heavy laden vineyards.
Favorite
British
Cars
