Car number fifteen.

Number Fifteen was an MGB GT 'LE' in Pewter Silver, the 'LE' denoting the fact that it was one of the last 1000 cars built by MG at Abingdon in late 1980. As previously mentioned the joys of owning an MG are manyfold, the Car Club, the constant awareness of living in the town where the car was made, etc. This car was special in many more ways as it had in its day been a world beating design but had been repeatedly sanitised over the years to satisfy the safety needs of its main export market the USA, this had produced one of the worst handling rear wheel drive cars that I had ever driven, never before had I been able to get a car sideways on a roundabout at 25mph in damp conditions... frightening.

Being an old design of car in a modern world meant constant attention to keep the thing on the road. This car had another hidden problem in that it would'nt let its owner progress past 75mph, and for the life of me I could'nt work out what was wrong, virtually everything of possible cause was replaced until at the last gasp one Sunday I replaced the fuel filter as I happened to have a spare lying around and some time to fit it, not that the old one looked like it needed changing but then none of the other parts had looked faulty when they had been replaced (and were'nt !). Anyway the car was taken out onto the A34 for a little test run and to my suprise no mis-firing of hiccups occurred and the next time I chanced a look at the speedo a very unusual speed had been attained. I got the feeling that the car had'nt been that fast in a very long time, this had probably lead to it being in such complete condition though.

Both cars parked by an entrance to Albert Park in Abingdon, my car is the Silver one on the left One of my friends from school also had an MGB at the time (and still has) so, many Car Club events were attended that summer and the following one, including the Silverstone Annual event, and many of the local 'Works Centre' events, I even managed to win my class in an Autotest with the car the day after my birthday in 1992. Many people would come up to me and ask me about the car if it was parked anywhere in Abingdon usually revealing eventually that they had had a hand in its birth in 1980, it really was that sort of car.

During the time I owned this car it also became my 'second' car as I owned cars 16 and then 17 while I still had the 'B', usually residing around at my parents house in their garage. Eventually after a great deal of largely unsuccessful advertising the car was sold to an Electrician I worked with at the time who still has the car as far as I know, once again this car is another I regretted selling as event though it had many faults it still had character.

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