In August of 2007, I was in a bookstore wearing an MG tee shirt. The proprietor, a lady with a very nice English accent, asked me if I knew of anyone who would be interested in an MGC. I told her that I was in a couple MG clubs, and I was sure that someone would want it. She went on to explain that it had been her son’s car, but he took a job in England 5 years before that and recently decided that he wasn’t coming back. I gave her my phone number and offered to help her advertise it. After a month or two with no call, I went back to the store and asked her if she had decided what to do with it. She hadn’t done anything, so I asked if I could look at it.
I brought along another MG guy, Gene Johnson, and found the car in a relatively clean, dry garage. It “ran when parked”, but now all the engine oil had leaked out, the brake system was empty and the battery was dead. At least the tires were holding air. The one question I asked was if it had an overdrive transmission. She said she didn’t know, and I couldn’t get under enough to see. I could see some typical bondo work in the dogleg and rockers. The good part was that the engine was not seized, the top was usable, the interior was decent, and most of the chrome was good. So after she accepted my first offer (darn, should have gone lower), Gene borrowed a trailer and we dragged it home.
I figured that with a little luck, I could spend a few weekends getting it back on the street and make a quick profit. (Best laid plans….) First, I found that it did have the OD. Then I discovered that both of the brake boosters were shot. The vacuum chambers were full of brake fluid. The calipers appeared to be new, albeit with a bit of surface rust. The water pump leaked, and the radiator was suspect. The old battery would hold a bit of a charge, good enough for electrical testing. I spent time checking out the carbs and ignition before any attempt at starting. With a full pan of oil (or should I say barrel of oil) and a couple squirts in each cylinder, I tried cranking with no plugs. Starter worked OK but no oil pressure. After numerous tries, I decided that the pump needed to be primed, so I took off the supply line to the oil cooler and funneled a little oil in. That was all it took. Once I had full oil pressure, I hooked up the ignition, and with 5 year old gasoline, it started right up. The exhaust even smelled old, but it ran.
While all this was going on, the brake boosters were being rebuilt. Once they were back on the car and the hydraulics bled, it was time for a test. Amazingly, the transmission and clutch worked fine, and the car ran pretty well – pretty well like a truck compared to my Midget. Now I knew that the car was fully functional, and I could start to think about selling it. Of course, there were a few minor problems to correct first.
Skipping ahead about sixteen years, I still have the C. Over those years, I have rebuilt suspension, brakes, rear axle, interior, replaced the top and tonneau, added a removable hardtop, and rebuilt the body and repainted. The only major things I have not rebuilt are the engine and transmission. I replaced the original worn-out seats with reupholstered Miata seats and added a custom roll bar. We have driven this car all over the eastern U.S. and some of Canada. It has become our go-to MG trip car. It is more comfortable and highway capable than either our Midget or MGA. It has been fun learning about the car and the history of the model. Because of the low production of the car, we are automatically in a somewhat exclusive group and have enjoyed meeting other C owners. One of these new acquaintances is worth relating.
When we joined the American MGC Register, our member number was 1537. In our first club newsletter, Mary Ellen noticed that number 1538 was a familiar name, Bill McCord. She had gone to a small high school in Illinois with a boy of that name, and this C owner lived in Peoria. We contacted him and confirmed that he was her former classmate. We met Bill and his wife, Carolyn, in Auburn in 2009, Asheville in 2010 and Indy in 2013, as well as meeting them in Illinois. It turns out that Bill and I have a number of common experiences besides the Cs and have enjoyed getting to know each other. As usual, our car hobby brought us together, but it’s really the people that bring us back.
Now it gets even harder to sell the C and lose that link to our MGC friends. At our first AMGCR event in Auburn, I had a for sale sign ready but never used it. As soon as the next event at Ashville was announced, everyone was eager to go there. So my dreams of a quick profit have vanished. I should know better than to think I was going to make money on an MG. But those dreams of profit have been replaced by good friends and fun events.