1975 MG MGB

From 1968 through 1974 a whole swath of new federal requirements were applied to new automobiles sold in the United States intended to increase vehicles' safety and lessen their harmful tailpipe emissions. In addition, the fuel crisis of 1973 made consumers extremely sensitive to fuel economy and soaring insurance rates punished performance-oriented automobiles.

The MG MGB that came out the other side of this period was quite different to the model that had gone into it in 1967.

The most obvious difference was the large bumpers fitted to both ends of the car. Prominent, heavy, and clad with black rubber no matter wha color the car to which they were bolted was painted, these earned the late MGB the epithet "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumper Cars".

Side marker lights had been added back in '68, as well as a padded dash and other safety features, but new federal requirements dictating headlight and bumper height caused MG to raise the Rubber Baby Buggy Bumper Car on its suspension, making handling wobblier. 

The onset of emissions reductions had done no favors to the car's performance either.

Under the hood, where once a pair of SU carburetors had been bolted to the intake, there now lived only a single Zenith-Stromberg. With an output of 62.9 SAE net horsepower at 5,000 rpm, that resulted in a 19% haircut from the previous peak power. 

Car and Driver's 1975 test car took all of 13.7 seconds to reach sixty and dawdled through the standing quarter mile in nineteen flat at 70.7 through the traps on the way to an observed ninety mile per hour top speed. Stopping from seventy took a whopping 207 feet. Fuel economy on both C/D’s urban and highway circuits was about 22mpg.

Price as tested, with only an AM/FM radio and chrome beauty rings on the wheels for options, was $4,620 in 1975 dollars, or $28,778 in current money.

The car in the photos was snapped in August of 2025 using a Canon EOS R and an RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 IS zoom lens.

1969 MG MGB GT

Launched as a 1964 model to replace the previous MGA, which had enjoyed a nearly decade long run of sales success, the new MGB was a tidy little two seat roadster like its predecessor. While it retained a live rear axle, it dispensed with body-on-frame construction for a modern unit body and had a standard folding top and roll-up windows.

For 1967 the roadster was joined by the MGB GT, a fastback coupe whose sleek roofline was designed by Pininfarina.

With only 97 ponies on tap, performance was leisurely by modern standards, with zero-to-sixty times in the low teens and a top speed only barely over a hundred, but the MGB in either coupe or convertible form is the epitome of the old adage that it's way more fun to drive a slow car fast than it is to drive a fast car slow.

This Bermuda Blue coupe is a 1969 model, going from the presence of FMVSS-compliant side marker lights and their location on the front fenders.

It was photographed with an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and an M. Zuiko Digital 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens in October of 2024.

1959 MG MGA 1600

In the early Fifties, the Nuffield Organization (Morris, MG, Wolseley, & Riley) merged with Austin to form British Motors Corporation. Like most other British car brands, MG had been suffering from a bit of postwar austerity. The classic T-type Midget was getting a bit vintage-looking in the early Fifties, with its narrow bonnet and open fenders.

Work began on a replacement and the new MGA was launched in 1955. The new car had a modern, fully-enclosed body with sleek lines. It retained the classic long hood & short deck proportions, which allowed the Austin-sourced overhead valve inline four to largely sit aft of the front axles.

While it could be had as a fixed-head coupe, the MGA was mostly sold in roadster form.

Allow me a side digression to point out here that it is a true roadster, with no permanently attached top. In fact, there aren't even any exterior door handles. There was a little pup tent sort of affair stowed in a bag tucked behind the seats, and if it started raining you could pull over beneath a convenient overpass and use this apparatus of sticks and canvas to divide the world into an exterior and a slightly less-damp interior. Roadsters are open cars intended for open-air motoring and while my BMW Z3 may say "Roadster" on the door sills, it's stolen valor.

At any rate, the initial MGAs were powered by a 1.5L (1,489cc) Austin 4-cylinder. For 1959, though, they received a displacement bump to 1.6L (1,588cc). Breathing through a pair of SU carbs and boasting an 8.3:1 compression ratio, the motor in the MGA 1600 put out 79.5 horsepower, which was a nearly ten percent bump over the earlier version and adequate to propel the little 2,000-pound roadster to an honest hundred miles per hour.

British magazine The Autocar managed a best zero-to-sixty run of 14.2 seconds and dispatched the standing quarter mile in 19.3 seconds.

This lovely Old English White example was photographed in Broad Ripple back in 2017 using a Nikon Coolpix P7000.

The MGA 1600 is an interesting blend of features both modern... disc brakes up front! ...and archaic... the horn button is in the center of the dash?!? What's most modern about it, though, are those dashing good looks.

1968 MG MGC GT

Here's something you don't see every day: An MGC GT.

The MGC was introduced in 1967 as a more potent version of the common MGB, substituting an inline six in place of the B's little 1.8L four. You can see the bulge in the hood needed to clear the radiator, which was located further forward due to the longer motor, and the little bump that gives clearance for the dual SU carbs.

The 2.9L BMC C-series six cylinder made 145bhp in production tune, which was a fifty horsepower boost over the four. In exchange for half again the horsepower, though, the car became extremely nose-heavy. Even though the powerplant was a redesigned, lightened version of BMC's existing straight six, it still weighed two hundred pounds more than the four cylinder engine in the MGB (itself not very svelte, being a 350+ pound cast iron lump) and almost all those pounds were out there over the front axle.

The resulting car, in hardtop GT coupe form, weighed in at something right around 2600 pounds before the driver clambered in, and while it was a capable tourer, it had lost all the tossability that made people love the B.

The MGC was roasted in the British motoring press and only lasted a couple years in production.

Interestingly, the later MGB GT V8, which used the 3.5L Rover V8, did not suffer from these problems. In fact, the aluminum...well, "aluminium" now, I guess...V8, originally designed by Buick, was actually about forty pounds lighter than the cast iron B-series inline four.

The top photo, of the car motoring down College Avenue, was taken with a Nikon D2X and 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-D zoom lens in September of 2021. The photos of the car parked in the Fresh Market parking lot were snapped with an Olympus E-600 and Zuiko Digital 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II zoom lens in March of 2022.