If you try and shove a giant V8 into a little car and find that the engine’s air cleaner doesn’t fit under the hood, you’ve got a few options. The cleanest look is to find an intake snorkus that allows you to run the stock hood, but you can also add a scoop or a cowl induction hood…or…you can bust out the sawzall and hack an opening in your hood. Find this 1963 MG MGB V8 offered for $8000 in Corning, CA via craigslist. Tip from Rock On!
The first thing you need to know about the 1995 MGF is that it was the first new design from MG since the launch of the MGB in 1962. The MG marque was used by the Austin Rover Group as a strange performance brand in the 70s/80s, but in the early 1990s they started developing this interesting little mid-engine roadster. Today the MG brand is owned by a Chinese state owned auto company and sells all kinds of strange cars with the MG badge on the hood, but that is a story for another time. Find this 1995 Rover MGF offered for $7000 in Richmond, TX via craigslist.
The MGC was a high performance inline-6 powered version of the MGB offered from 1967 through 1969. It was built by the British Motor Corp (Austin, MG, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, etc) as an intended replacement for the Austin-Healey 3000 MkIII and a competitor to the inline-6 powered Triumphs from Leyland Motors. We’ve featured a few MGCs over the years, but prices are on the way up and they get expensive, unless you get a total rust bucket like this next one. Find this 1969 MG MGC offered for $3,500 in Rio Rancho, NM via craigslist. Tip from FuelTruck.
There are a lot of things I get sick of quite easily. Political advertisements. Brittle plastic connector parts. The Olsen Twins. The list goes on. But you know what I’ll never get sick of? Classic British sportscars with fastback roof shapes designed by Pininfarina offered for a few grand on craigslist. Yes. I’ll never get sick of that. Find this 1972 MG MGB GT offered for $5000 in Concord, CA via craigslist. Tip from FuelTruck.
The first generation (Mark I) MG Midget was a pint sized little runabout from Morris Garage that shared mechanical parts with the Sprite from Austin-Healey from 1961-1964. The Midget shared basically every part of its bill-of-materials (except the badge) with the Sprite, but today’s example has a bigport 2T-C 4-cylinder 1.6-liter engine borrowed from an early 70s Toyota Celica or Corona. Find this 1964 MG Midget offered for $1900 in Olympia, WA via craigslist. Tip from JB1025.
This next car isn’t a museum piece or a rusty barn find…no, it is neither — it lives somewhere in the seedy underworld of automotive purgatory. This half-fixed classic needs someone to expunge its past sins and prepare it for automotive Valhalla or sell it for scrap. But for $1500, you could go either way and break even. Find this 1972 MG Midget offered for $1500 in Cuero, TX via craigslist.
This next car comes as a tip from Carter who writes: They say that people look like their dogs, or maybe it’s people’s dogs look like them? But what about when the car looks like the dog? Or maybe like a beluga whale riding a tricycle? Haha, yes this is indeed a strange looking vehicle, probably because a Crosley CC was never meant to be shoved on top of an MG Midget chassis…but it sorta works. Find this 1947 Crosley on 1976 Midget Chassis offered for $5,000 outside of Boston, MA via craigslist.
I’ve joked in the past that owning more than one old British car is the equivalent of having a captive breeding program — because you’ll inevitably acquire additional examples of your favorite type of Triumph, MG, Jensen, Austin, etc. Why? Because the cost of a parts car is generally much less than the sum of the parts in that pile of junk, so you’ve got what we have here today, which is a nice chrome bumper ’74 MGB with a dirty rubber bumper ’78 MGB parts car as a bonus. Find this 1974 MG MGB + 1978 MG B offered for $7,500 in Sacramento, CA via craigslist. Tip from Rock On!
I am not a connoisseur of barn finds — any vehicle that has had chickens roosting in the engine bay or rats chewing on the wiring harness for 20 years is not the car for me. But, I don’t want to discount the thrill of finding something covered in a tarp that is maybe more than meets the eye…or in this case, it is one of the rarest models to come out of Morris Garage — specifically the MGC GT of which this is one of 4457 built. It appears to be missing its 150 horsepower 2.9 liter C-series inline-6, but I bet a 2JZ would fit (I’m KIDDING! Please don’t do that…use an SR20DET instead..sheesh). Anyway, if an MGC GT is good enough for Prince Charles (who later gave it to Prince William according to the internet lore) then it should be good enough for you. And this one comes with a spare MGC parts car…or maybe it is vice-versa. Find this 1969 MGC GT & 1968 MGC offered for $7000 in West Monroe, LA via craigslist. Tip from Ramjet.
This next car comes as a tip from Kester who writes: Why do I like this so much? Is it because it’s so wrong and makes no sense whatsoever? I even struggled to send this in, though I know if I bought it, my wife would have me sleeping in it for the next month (and I don’t think the seats recline far enough…) She banished me to the garage once after buying a rusty old 914, but promised to never do it again as apparently I enjoyed it too much. The answer is easy — you like the idea of a reliable MGB GT with Mazda power and the patina of a WWII era battleship for next to nothing. Find this 1970 MG B GT offered for $5000 in Boone, IA via craigslist.