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 MGB GT is one of those classics that looks like a million bucks but only costs a few. I spent a better part of my youth trying to figure out what makes certain cars expensive and others cheap — and you can play with production numbers and quality and performance and blah-blah-blah till the sun goes down…but sometimes you’ve just got to be happy when they are affordable. Because that means you can drive something vintage without tapping into your savings or selling one of your kids. Find this 1973 MGB GT bidding for $3600 on eBay (or on craigslist) with 4 days to go, located in Los Angeles, CA.
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.
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.
Stop scrunching up your nose. It makes little wrinkles on the side of your face. This next car causes an instant scrunch on the face of most car guys, not because it is ugly per se…but it is slightly Picasso-esque. No. That’s not fair. Maybe Toulouse-Lautrec-esque…but styling aside it is an interesting beast — a […]
This next car came with a certain amount of deja vu. Did we already feature this car? Or have we simply seen so many Rover V8 powered MGBs that my brain has become a fog of classic British steel and aluminum alloy? I guess this is a new entry into the world of V8 powered […]
The MGB GT was a fixed roof version of Morris Garage’s iconic MGB roadster, introduced in 1965 and built through 1980 for various markets. When first released, the GT used the same BMC B-series inline-4 cylinder engine, but added small back seats for kids and a gorgeous Pininfarina designed greenhouse with a fastback lift-gate and […]