MGs on parade

Took part in a fun MG run this morning with the MG Car Club – arriving at lunch just in time to dodge most of the raindrops (I felt sure on Friday as soon as the forecast was for bad weather that it was bound to be fine for the run).  Although I’m not sure why we all drove past the Hallertau Brewpub at speed; even if it was mid-morning, I’ll definitely need to take that oversight up with the run organiser – or get my navigator Jonathan Darby to work out a detour next time.

Anyway, too busy driving to get any pics of the cars in action, but seeing around 100 or so of the fine machines parked up, even in an undercover parking garage, is enough to get even the most slothful camera finger working.

Here’s just a few of the beauties.

It’s a close-run thing, but this beautifully-presented 1939 TB might have just pipped the MGA in my affections.

A very sad day at the MG restorers

This is very sad. The recession depression is affecting more than just the big American auto companies.  MG enthusiast John Twist of University Motors in Michigan, whose MG tips and tricks on YouTube have made him a popular figure with MG owners everywhere, is closing down his own business restoring and maintaining MGs after thirty-four years in the trade, due to declining economic conditions.  Below is the sad day when the signs come down.  And here’s the video of his sad announcement, which includes a neat look at the classic sports cars from right across the States he’s restoring as the shutters come down.

MG meets Montessori

                 

I did get to Napier over the weekend for the Montessori Association conference -- in a different MG than the one I'd intended, and just in time to take keynote speaker Cheryl Ferreira for a spin around the Art Deco city.  As she said, there's nothing like a bit of wind through your sari.
[Photo by Fred Stevens from Studio NZ Photography, www.studioNZ.com]

A sea of classic cars

                                   

I had a great weekend, I really did, and thanks very much for asking.  Friday we barbecued, Saturday we plotted, and Sunday I had a fantastic time at the Ellerslie Classic Car show.

The day at the car show started far too early (dropping off my car at 7am with matchsticks under my eyelids), and ended in style later in the afternoon driving home in the clouds of delightfully scented exhaust smoke belched out behind this classic 1932 MG 'M' Type 'whale-tail' Midget -- the first true MG Midget, and the first of a long line of MG sports cars!

 

The J2's owner epitomises the day.  Here were people delighting in the technology of pleasure and the sea of beautiful cars designed with fun in mind, and pictured here are some of my own favourite machines on display.

Ferrari 212 amid a small sea of lesser Ferraris.

Aston Martin and AC Cobra. 

Colin Waite's Formula 1 Fiat, and a Fiat Spider like the one I once owned (in every way, that is, but for colour and condition).

Two beautiful Alfa Spiders.

A small wave of Morgans and a tidal flow of 'Big Healeys.'

A Lotus Elite ... and a Mercedes Sport waiting for its rebirth.

A Karmann Ghia with the '1500' badge on the boot, but the full-throated sting of a Chevrolet Corvair in the tail...

Porsche Speedster, MGA and another J2.

A sea of MGs in front of the main stand, including amongst them my own 1967 Midget, and dozens of MGBs, MGAs, Ts, and pre-1956 lovelies.  Just beautiful.

MG day out

Went out before brunch this morning along the waterfront to an MG Car Club concourse at St Heliers.  Great to see so many fine machines  on display still giving so much driving pleasure. 

Especially great to see them before the weather packed in.

Here's the beautifully presented MG TD on the left that won the overall concours prize, with some modern thing next to it ( I'm told it's an MGF).  And down to the right there is a  superb 1958 MGA Twin Cam -- a rare and special beast that still gets around the country -- that won the 'Show and Shine' prize.  My own Midget is there behind it on the right .  And at the top there are two more beautifully presented MGAs, with an MGRV8 next door, and  a Magnette saloon behind.

A fine sight on a not so fine Sunday morning.

Safety fast

Only God can make a tree, observed PJ O'Rourke, but only man can drive by one at one-hundred-and-fifty miles per hour. I can't boast that my little MG can do anywhere near that sort of speed, but driving up the North Island on my way back from Saturday's Atlas Celebrations in Wellington with the sun out, the roof down and my foot flat to the floor in company with another classic car owner, I meditated again that New Zealand is a gorgeous country in which to drive fast, and far too beautiful a place to be left to the tribalists, the collectivists and the postmodern wankers.

As Dave Henderson said Saturday night, these islands are our home -- and a truly breathtaking home it is, full of great landscapes, good people and fun-loving machinery like this.

Don't let it go!

UPDATE: Here's a pic of myself and my driving companion leaving Tarawera (shot of accompanying TR6 sadly still unavailable) ...

... and myself and a much better looking companion:


UPDATE 2: BTW, anybody understand the "Safety Fast" reference? I guess not. It used to be the official MG slogan: "Safety Fast! Raise your heartbeat!" Worth raising a glass or two to, huh.

Cars

Cars and I just don't seem to go together. In fact, vehicles I own seem to have some sort of problem with me. Friend's cars, company cars, rental cars, none have ever given me any problems. Only when they're mine do they decide to make the struggles of Sisyphus look like a great afternoon out in the open air.

You know, I do all the maintenance on them, I keep them shipshape, I've never lost my No Claims Bonus ... but something always just. Seems. To. Happen. I'll show you what I mean.

My first vehicle was a motorcycle. I had it for a year or two, before being run off the road by a woman going through a stop sign. I still remember flying through the air over her car thinking, "Hmmm, what happens now." So I bought a car. A beautiful little MG Midget like that one on the left. That too lasted a year and a bit, before the axle snapped while I was giving my girlfriend a driving lesson. I headed to Sydney to recover, as you do.

Somehow, on my return, I was persuaded to buy a Mini. The Mini lasted a few years, doing a lot of driving between Wellington (where I was living) and Auckland (where I was playing footy), before expiring on a routine trip into Uni one morning: the brakes failed coming down Mt Pleasant Rd. Unpleasant. I avoided going over the edge, but that was the end of that Mini, and at least one fence-post.

A friend in Auckland took pity on this poor Uni student. He had a Minivan in his barn, and when the chickens were shooed out the car went, and there was plenty of space in the back for my tools. The car ran well. Once. Drove down to Massey Uni for Easter to see my girlfriend, who was living on campus in a flat at the base of the Vet Tower. It ran beautifully.

I parked outside in the wee small hours, and I was shaken awake too few hours later by my hostess. Was the car I'd driven down a cream Minivan? I said it was. She said it was upside down outside -- the sight of the little car had been too much for a group of passing students, it seems who had done what you do when you're dumb. The car (and my tools inside it) were never the same again. I should have known better, really: my tools had been stolen from the earlier Mini at the same place a year earlier.

To cut a long story short, since then I've had a Ford Escort which was stolen and wrecked; a long hiatus in which I enjoyed no problems at all with company cars, thank you very much, before returning to Auckland and a Mitsubishi Sigma that was destroyed by another woman going through a stop sign; a Fiat Spider in which one by one gearbox, engine then body gave up on life; and a Subaru that was written off late last year after three cars and a Coca Cola truck decided to go into the back of it on the motorway.

Bad karma. If I didn't know better, I'd say I was being picked on for something, wouldn't you?

I have a new car now. Bull-bars. Bullet-proof engine. Sturdy engineering. And it doesn't leave the house except when it really, really, really has to. I try and borrow other people's instead. I have no problem with them.

There's a first and last time for everything...

Another ego trip that everyone's doing, and as I'm just a mindless follower:

TEN FIRSTS
First Best Friend: Mostyn Brown (neighbour). Lost contact when my family moved when I was six. He had a great cowboy outfit. :-)
First Screen Name: Organon.
First Pet: Tinky. Family cat.
First Piercing: Nope. Too fashionable.
First Crush: Um, when I was five, a girl called Lynette Crookes.
First CD Bought: First CD was Television's 'Marquee Moon.' But I was alive when records were the thing: first record was Hello Sailor's 'Gutter Black.'
First Car: MG Midget with a Ford 1600cc engine. (Okay, okay.)
First True Love: DJ
First Stuffed Animal: A stuffed elephant, I think.
First Words: Apparently it was 'bus.'
First Game System: Never had one.

NINE LASTS
Last Alcoholic: A Stella, last night
Last Movie Seen: 'Meistersingers of Nuremburg,' with Donald McIntyre. (Well, it is a film, right?)
Last CD Played: Charlie Christian, 'Good Enough to Keep.'
Last Bubble Bath: ???
Last Time You Cried: 24 August, 2005. Funeral.
Last Time You Laughed: Over beers last night
Last Time You Fell: When hit by a flying trolley in Raglan. Ouch. -/

EIGHT HAVE YOU EVERS
Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Friends: Nope. Too much like incest.
Have You Ever Been Arrested: Nope. Harrassed a few times, but never arrested. Rule #1: the policeman is always right.
Have You Ever Been Skinny Dipping: Yup.
Have You Ever Been On TV: Yup.
Have You Ever Regretted A Kiss: Imagine regretting a kiss!
Have You Ever Been Drunk: D'you mean today?.
Have You Ever Slept For 24 Hours Straight: Sure have, after a few all-nighters meeting project deadlines.
Have You Ever Worn the Same Pants for 3 Weeks Straight: Nope; two weeks maybe... ;^)

SEVEN THINGS YOU'RE WEARING
1. Organon Polo Shirt
2. Jean Shorts
3. Underpants
4. Jandals
5. A smile
6. There is no six...
7. ...or any seven

SIX THINGS YOU DID YESTERDAY
1. Watched Roskill Saints win the Auckland Australian Football Grand Final.
2. Drank several beers.
3. Drank a martini on the beach while watching the sun go down.
4. Talked nonsense.
5. Heard about a friend's musical debut at the Kings Arms.
6. Listened to Benny Goodman.

FIVE HEROES
1. Frank Lloyd Wright
2. Duke Ellington
3. Ayn Rand
4. Robert Heinlein
5. Thomas Jefferson

FIVE FAVOURITE THINGS
1. Falafels
2. Google Earth
3. Tofu
4. The Rodin Museum
5. ArchiCAD

THREE CHOICES
1. Radio or CD? CD. Radio is chewing gum for the ears.
2. German chocolate cheese cake or vanilla bean cheese cake? Vanilla bean. Subtle cheesecakes are best.
3. Black or white? Black is the new black.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE
1. Design at least one-hundred homes from which the owners don't want to leave.
2. Visit every Frank Lloyd Wright building still standing.
3. Attend several performances of the Ring Cycle at Bayreuth.

ONE THING YOU REGRET
1. Wasting seed capital and a year of my life on business partners who don't keep promises.

MG Rover warning

David Russell of the Consumers Institute warns 'The Chinese are taking over the bankrupt Rover MG' so 'Don't buy Rovers!' and 'Never nasty MGs!' As all simple people stay close around Russell's reasoning, I guess that's it then for New Zealand's Rover and MG owners. Says Dynamic Dave in his own words:

"Buyers of MG Rover cars may find themselves unable to get parts and service in years to come. Worst of all, they may be unable to resell these vehicles at anything like the purchase price," Consumers’ Institute chief executive David Russell said. "Our only possible advice is to completely avoid these vehicles."

Can anyone tell me why the fuck this guy gets so much air time to talk so much shit? Rover MG shut down production in April and were declared bankrupt; the news to which Russell is now responding is that production may now beginn again in China. Most recent MGs and Rovers have hardly been worth stepping across the road for anyway (unfortunately that means most of them since 1976), and most MG and Rover buyers are pretty clear what they're getting anyway without needing Russell's advice.

It's still sad that they went belly up again, but they really died as real car makers in 1980. Somewhere, sometime, there's a story to be told here about how state intervention killed the British motor industry. In the meantime, why not continue to enjoy your classic MGs and Rovers even as David Russell tries to talk down their price. I'm sure if you've got the smarts to buy one, you've also got enough smarts to do that.