Fantastic car, awful weather

IT’S not often I get an entire afternoon to reacquaint myself with an old car. Even when the afternoon’s as wet and unwelcoming as this one’s been.

The old car in question is one you’ll be familiar with if you read these pages regularly; my 1972 MGB GT , which despite being one of my most treasured possessions hasn’t done any meaningful driving since itsappearance at the Ormskirk MotorFest back in August. With the weather turning increasingly cold and miserable, the tougher driving tasks have been assigned to the MX-5.

Until now.

I would’ve loved to point the MG’s nose onto the motorway and go hunting for the hills of the Lakes or North Wales but with just a few hours of meaningful daylight I play with I went to a place surprisingly few motorists outside the Sefton/West Lancashire area know about. The shots you see here are taken on Cleaves Hill, which is a stone’s throw from Aughton. Normally, it affords some great views across to Liverpool and even to the Welsh coast, but today just about the most it could do were these moody countryside shots of the MG.

The weather was cold and miserable, the amount of water involved was playing havoc with the GT’s indicator relay and the light was fading fast, but I absolutely loved my afternoon with it. It’s a proper sports car in the old fashioned sense; heavy, noisy and not especially easy to drive, but tinged with a romance and a nostalgia which make its sound, handling and style ever more enjoyable.

I just can’t wait for it to be summer again, so I can enjoy it properly.

Ormskirk MotorFest 2012 - the day in pictures

THOUSANDS of petrolheads have packed into Ormskirk to make the market town’s second MotorFest event a spectacular success.

The event, organised jointly by Aintree Circuit Club and West Lancashire Borough Council, saw scores of classic cars and bikes, including Grand Prix racers and Group B rally cars, take to the town’s one way system for the climax of a day of motorsport-themed action, in what has been one of the town’s busiest trading days.

Councillor Paul Greenall, the mayor of West Lancashire, told Life On Cars: “It’s been really good, and fortunately the weather held off. There have been lots of very good cars here, and they’ve brought thousands of people into Ormskirk.

“There’s been a lot of interest in both our charities, and for Ormskirk the number of people speaks for itself. I hope there’s another event next year, because this one’s been a big success.”

Among the highlights for visitors was the chance to watch rally star Becky Kirvan put her motorsport-prepared Ford Fiesta through its paces, the parade of supercars, including the McLaren MP4-12C, and a poignant motorcycle parade held in memory of Southport superbike racer Ben Gautrey, who was killed at a race in Cadwell Park last year.

Although the threat of bad weather had loomed over the event, with participants being treated to downpours early on, sunshine during the parades later on helped to attract as many 15,000 visitors into the town centre to see the displays near the clock tower and in Coronation Park, as well as a series of parades around the town’s one way system.

Neville Hay, event commentator, said:  “I thought it went very well, especially given the limited amount of time you have to work with, the amount you have to do and the sheer number of cars involved. It’s not something that happens every day, but I think it went extremely well.

“Last year’s event went very well, but this year’s show has gone even better. I really hope it happens again next year.”

Life On Cars took these pictures at the event:

Keep an eye on Life On Cars for a video from the event, and read more in next Wednesday’s edition of The Champion newspaper (August 29 edition).

Getting ready for Ormskirk MotorFest 2012

IT'S been a busy day at Life On Cars HQ!

Not only have I nudged the Rover 214 through its MOT for a second time - at the same garage in Rainford which did such a great job of mending the MX-5 last Christmas - but I've spent an exhausting afternoon making sure my beloved MGB GT is looking its best for an event I've spent months looking forward to.


The 2012 Ormskirk MotorFest.

I'm not sure which is more likely to misbehave tomorrow - the MG or the weather - but either way I'm looking forward to seeing the surreal sight of Grand Prix cars roaring around the streets of Ormskirk, and Group B rally cars parading past the parish church.

I've been given special permission by the show's organisers to post updates on the event's Twitter feed, so if you're keen to know what's going on tomorrow or to share your thoughts either head to @2012MotorFest on the Twitter website or simply look at the cunning feed below, which will be updated throughout the show:


The official launch magazine, made by Life On Cars, has also had a great reception, with more than 1,000 people reading it since it was published last week. If you haven't had a look through it already, by means have a read whether you're planning on visiting the show or not - it's a good read (then again, I would say that, because I wrote it).

There'll also be posters at the event promoting the magazine, which you can read while you're there by simply looking for this QR code on the poster and scanning it with your smartphone:

The F1 cars, the acres of motorsport metal, the banter with the enthusiasts, the Group B rally contenders or just the chance to show off the MG to thousands of petrolheads - I'm not sure what I'm looking forward to most.

If you're planning on going to tomorrow's event, by all means pop over for a natter...

For a full follow up visit Life On Cars tomorrow (Sunday, August 26) and read next Wednesday's edition of The Champion newspaper.

The easy way to work out what you're getting for your gallon

THE pensioners in their mollycuddled Nissan Micras powered passed me as I puffed uselessly up the incline. My 40-year-old car, despite looking a bit sporty, doesn't really do hills.

It didn't really help that I was a bit nervous this time last Sunday. You'll probably already know that I've got an old MG and I've been on all sorts of adventures with it, but in the two year it's spent under my wing it's not once ventured beyond the fields of West Lancashire. Mainly because I wasn't entirely convinced it'd go much further.

But there's a first time for everything and as I gingerly ventured onto the M6 and pointed that never-ending bonnet northwards I was keen to find out not just whether my MG BGT could make it to places outside Lancashire without conking out on the hard shoulder. I also wanted to answer - and stay with me on this one - the all important question of fuel economy.

If you've ever wanted to work out what your car actually does to the gallon - and it's worth doing, because most of the manufacturers' figures are a tad optimistic - there's an easy way of doing it. Simply brim your tank until the fuel pump clicks, drive it around for 100 miles or so, and brim it again. Even though you've got to faff about converting the amount from litres into UK gallons you can fairly easy, and accurately, work out whether your car's as frugal as it should be.

I've done it with each and every one of my motors - in fact, I did with the MX-5 the other week, which despite being driven with a particularly weighty right foot around the windy roads of Wales still returned 34mpg. The best I've managed so far was with my old Renault 5, which despite having been to the moon and back mileage-wise still knocked up a respectable 43 to the gallon. Your car, if you're sensible and drive a diesel hatch like everyone else, should do at least 50 on a good run.

So what about the MG, which uses two enormous carburettors to shovel high-octane petrol into an engine designed in the Fifties and made largely from pig iron? Well, on a 150 mile run on motorways, country lanes and the A6 through rural Lancashire it managed 25.3mpg. Pretty poor compared to a new car, I'll admit, but not bad for an older model I'm still smitten with.

What's more, my car did an entire journey to somewhere far away, and back again, and didn't break down! A summer of adventures await...

An MGB GT that's even better than mine

CONTINUING our occasional series on classic cars casually spotted during lunch breaks, here's an MGB GT I found a stone's throw from the seafront earlier.

If you saw the pictures of the MG Icon earlier this week it'll be obviously from these pictures which car from the company's back catalogue inspired it; everything from the nostalgic red paintjob to the bluff, chrome radiator grille and the rear hatchback comes straight from the Sixties sports coupe.

More annoyingly though, it's in almost concours condition, making my own beloved B GT look a bit rough round the edges by comparision - even though mine's got the desirable Webasto full length sunroof and I'd be much happier parking it on a side street than this beautiful G-reg example. Envious, me? Not at all...

 Do you own this classic car? Get in touch with Life On Cars by sending an email to david.simister@champnews.com and let us know more about it!

An MGB owner's view of the new MG Icon

THIS unusual offering is being hyped as the hottest new automotive offering at this week's Beijing Motorshow - but in terms of style it's straight from the Sixties.

The MG Icon might look like a sporty, small off-roader in the vein of say, Nissan's Juke but the concept car's British designer reckons it pays tribute to MG's sports cars of the Fifties and Sixties, particularly the MGB GT coupe which would have been a familiar sight on Britain's roads after its introduction in 1966.

Anthony Williams-Kenny, MG's chief designer, said: "The MG brand has a unique set of values and heritage and allows us to offer individual design values to our products. The MG Icon represents our vision of a modern MG and we feel that the small SUV canvas demonstrates MG’s capacity for progressive design with respect for its long heritage. "We have balanced familiar brand cues, such as the wide and powerful front end graphic interpretation and, as one would expect, with a strong focus on the unique MG octagon.

The MG Icon clearly demonstrates a progressive and soulful British spirit and has a lithe and powerful stance – its proportion harmonised by feature lines interpreted from MG’s iconic greats."

The car has already won an award for Best Concept from the Beijing show's organisers but as an owner of one of the original MG BGTs from the early Seventies I'm not so sure; details like the way the lights sit on top of the rear wings worked well on the crisp coupe, but on the Icon they look a little bloated and out of place, while the rest of the car seems dominated by the enormous rear wheelarches.

It's certainly challenging but it does at least doff its cap to the company's heritage, and is more obviously a descendant of MGs of old than the MG6 and the soon-to-arrive MG5 are.

Share your motoring stories with David Simister by sending an email to david.simister@champnews.com

MGB vs MX-5 - which would you rather have?

A COUPLE of MX-5 enthusiasts I got chatting to a couple of weeks ago gave me a slightly bewildered impression when I told them I drove an MGB as well. Why, if you own an example of the world's best-selling sports car, would you spend your money on an antique built badly by British Leyland?

Let's face it. The MX-5 is faster, stronger, better built, kinder to the environment and a better handler than the thirsty old MG ever was. I should know, because - and I'm not bragging - I own both.

But choosing between them, on an Easter weekend where the sun shines even occasionally, is like choosing between your left leg and your right. On the face of it, both of these cars do the same things for the same reason, but in reality they do them completely differently. I love them both.

Driving the Mazda's a little like ordering a Bacardi Breezer on a night out; it is, depending on who you're with, a little bit girly, but it's cheap and fun in a giggly, youthful sort of way. It's a 22-year-old and behaves like one, with its modern mechanicals, cheap and simple soft top and its sprightly but not scary handling meaning the joys of driving one is accessible to just about everyone.

The MK1 version is usefully more delicated than the ones that followed and yet tougher than the sports cars of the MGB's generation, which is why it's not surprising that it's the best selling sports car of all time. As a sports car recipe, I don't think it's ever been bettered.

But... but... it's the MGB that gives me the bigger buzz. Driving it - in fact, doing anything with it - is like ordering a pint of Adnams Tally Ho on a night out, which might mark you out as a bearded real ale enthusiast to the casual observer but has an ineffable depth of character the alcopop just doesn't. It is a car you describe not with figures and statistics, but with the carefully-chosen phrases best known to Observer wine critics.

The Mazda is, I think, tomorrow's must-have classic because it's more fun more of the time than the MG, firing faithfully into life day after day before dancing deftfully from corner to corner wherever you go. The MGB, with its carburettors which constantly demand your attention and its heavy steering and ocean liner handling, is rubbish by comparision.

But it looks and sounds like a proper sports car of the old school where the MX-5 doesn't, and paradoxically I prefer it because it's slightly worse.

I'll take both.

Why I love mild winters

THIS TIME last year the last place you'll have found me was behind the wheel of a classic car.

Winter is cold, wet, slippy and salty, which is exactly why you wouldn't want to venture out in a forty-year-old sports car crafted by the hands of British Leyland. But where last year there was gritting there's now grey skies and drizzle, so tonight I roused the MGB from hibernation and took it to the pub.

It is the polar opposite of the MX-5 which competes for my love and attention. It isn't a masterclass through the corners and nor is it especially fast, but it makes a wonderful noise as it burbles down the back roads.

But to understand why I love it you just have to look at this night shot I took earlier; it is, for want of a better word gorgeous. With perfect proportions, lashings of chrome and the right stance, it's a British sports car to be proud of.

I just hope there isn't a cold snap on the way.

Video: MGB GT

I COULDN'T help but smile when one my favourite cars - my 1972 MGB GT - got some fan mail earlier today.

The car's previous owners sent an email to The Champion office to let me know they regularly read the updates on a thoroughly traditional and very British sports car I've been proud to own for the last 18 months, and it's for them that I include a video of the car in action.

An extract from their email reads:

Mr Simister,

You will be surprised, and I hope, pleased to learn that we follow your reports of "our" MGB and have compiled an archive simply because we are delighted that you gain so much pleasure from the car.I could not have wished for a better outcome; passing the car to someone who is really thrilled to own it.

Our friends look out for it and report "sightings". The previous owner, Alison, thinks we are mad...........but then she did not have the car as part of the family for 20 years!!

To which I've replied...


Thanks for your kind email and hope you had a good Christmas and an enjoyable New Year.

I'm delighted that you're still following the progress on the MGB. I am, as I'm sure you've probably gathered, absolutely smitten with it. Since its return to the road it's been on numerous runs into the West Lancashire countryside and was an entrant into the Ormskirk MotorFest last August; at the moment it's being treated to a new exhaust, fuel tank and stereo system, but when it comes out of winter hibernation one of my aims is to take it on the official MGB 50th anniversary run in Gaydon this April.

I'll have a look for a back copy of the magazine for you but in the meantime I'm happy to enclose a copy of the video, which I filmed a few weeks ago (before I fitted the new exhaust, incidentally). The video can be seen here:

The MGB will be back on the road once the sun comes out again, so I'm sure your friends will report plenty more sightings in the coming weeks!

More updates on Bridget, as I call her, to follow soon...

Sixties style, Teenies tech

IT'S nice to think that when people go onto West Lancashire Borough Council's website to sort out their council tax, they might well be granted with this wonderfully evocative image featuring my very own MGB GT.

I only discovered this poignant picture of MGs from years gone by the other day when I was checking a possible Champion story out but I'll let you into a little secret; I haven't actually driven the bumble B much since that sunny Bank Holiday weekend. In fact, it's been holed up in a garage since then, undergoing a series of subtle but hugely beneficial upgrades.

First off, it's been treated to a much newer and less holey tailgate, which should do wonders in preventing the small lake which lives in the boot appearing every time it rains. Until it's finished I've been limited to taking the MGB out on days when I know it isn't going to rain, which with it being Britain means I've taken it out twice in the past month. It's frustrating, but my luggage will thank me for it!

Another essential bit of kit Santa's brought early is a new fuel tank which - trust me - isn't as dull as it sounds. My biggest bugbear with the BGT is that thanks to having the original fuel tank it suffers with the same problem as every other fortysomething smoker; its lungs are filled with muck, so it coughs and splutters if you ask it go for a run. A new fuel tank means not only less time coughing and spluttering at the side of the road but should actually mean it'll be able to dump more fuel into its two enormous carburettors, more of the time. Which'll make it faster.

But what I'm really looking forward to is the new stereo I've just had fitted to it, which moves the MGB's in car entertainment from a very stodgy Pioneer radio job from the early Eighties straight through to the very latest MP3-ready, USB compatible, digitally futuristic job I could afford. Get this; it's a a 1972 car with a DVD player!


This immediately begs two questions.

Should a 40-year-old classic have such a defiantly modern stereo? Admittedly, I did agonise over whether to fit a retro stereo, but decided against it because a) they're expensive, b) life is too short for a shoddy Seventies eight track stereo and c) the old stereo wasn't the original anyway, so I figured fitting an even newer one wasn't about to dent its originality. I'm sure the purists will sneer at classic car shows, but that'll be twice a year. Enjoying the right accoustics, on the other hand, is an everyday delight.

Do I need a car stereo with an inbuilt DVD player? I've tried to kid everyone that it's to keep me entertained on camping trips but the answer's a tad simpler than that; I am male, and all men love needless gadgets, especially ones in MG-style retro packaging. If I had enough time and expertise I'd build the world's first WiFi-equipped MGB, brimmed with weapons grade technology and gadgets that'd give a Porsche 959 a run for its money.

Which the leaky tailgate would immediately ruin...

My Ormskirk MotorFest lap

A FERRARI Enzo, a Frogeye Sprite, a brace of E-Types and a Noble with a Boeing-esque wing on the back.



It's not often you get to keep pace with such an eclectic collection of sports cars, and certainly not on Ormskirk's one-way system. Luckily, I have a 40-year-old MG that's more than up to the task.



If you were at last Sunday's Ormskirk MotorFest, you'll probably know by now it wasn't just a success in a vague, it-wasn't-a-flop sort of way. By noon, both the town centre and Coronation Park were swarming with people, and not just the usual bunch of sad petrolheads (i.e: me) either. Maybe it was the cast of cars and bikes that'd turned up or the unexpected sunshine, but something about seemed to capture the imagination of thousands of visitors.



I loved milling around all the old Triumphs (two and four wheeled) but I was also lucky enough to get a perspective few other visitors got; I actually got to drive the closed one-way streets in a classic car. A classic car that had encountered two different breakdowns less than a fortnight earlier. Boy, was I nervous.



Yet once I'd crawled out of Coronation Park and got onto the streets, the nerves faded away. Here I was in the event's only MGB GT, with the full-length sunroof open, cruising past streams of excited children asking their parents what all these strange old cars were. They absolutely loved it.



I've seen a couple of clips on YouTube since and seen what the thousands of visitors saw; a crisp Seventies GT car, burbling around Ormskirk with the sun bouncing off the chrome and the deep, throaty exhaust ricocheting off the shop front windows. Then again, I was out of the MG just in time to see the F1 cars and the superbikes strutting their stuff, and they sounded epic. The scream of the Saudia Williams as it scorched past the parish church is one I'll never forget.



I'm lucky enough to have experienced Ormskirk's MotorFest on several different levels; as a participant, as a visitor, and as a journalist covering it for The Champion. I'd like to use what little influence I have with this column to make a plea to Aintree Circuit Club and West Lancashire Borough Council on behalf of everyone who enjoyed it.



Please, please do it again...

Woodvale Rally: The Champion page and details of the military procession

TWO of the cars from the Life On Cars garage - the MGB GT and the Mini - will be appearing at this year's Woodvale Rally.

This mock-up front page of The Southport Champion, which the printed column appears in, will also greet visitors during the event, so if you're going to be sure to keep a close eye out for the cars. There'll also be updates tomorrow and on Saturday and Sunday from the rally venue itself.

To read the story in full, just click above or below:

Open publication - Free publishing - More cars

In other news, dozens of military machines will rumble into Southport town centre this weekend - but don't worry, it's not an invading army!

The procession, which will include more than 30 vehicles and arrive on Lord Street on Saturday evening (August 6), will be comprised of entrants into this year's Woodvale Rally, which takes place throughout this weekend at RAF Woodvale.

The road run, which will take approximately one hour, will take in Liverpool Road, Waterloo Road to the beginning of Lord Street, before turning back towards the Woodvale Rally venue along the same route. Due to the machinery taking part, the procession is expected to be slow moving.

Police have recommended that motorists use the Coastal Road as an alternative route for those wishing to get into Southport without being delayed by the procession.

For more updates from the Woodvale Rally check out the Champion's motoring blog this weekend at www.lifeoncars.blogspot.com

Proof that summer has finally arrived...

Taken last night outside the rather quaint Hesketh Arms in Churchtown, in Southport.

That is all.

The Life On Cars MGB GT: it's finally ready!

A CHAP in a very clean MK3 Cortina - better known as the star of time-travelling cop show Life On Mars - pulled up alongside me and was the first to ask the question.

Was this, the car I was filling up at my local branch of Esso, the MGB he'd read so much about in The Champion? Could the 1972 GT finally be ready, taxed, insured and MOT'd?

I could barely contain the smile. Yes, it's finally ready, it's on the road, and I can finally say what I think of it. Maybe it's just the sunny weather that's graced Southport for the last few days, but it's brilliant.

As a car it's got a completely different character to the Minis and hot hatches I'm used to; whereas they're permenantly fast-paced and frantic in everything they do, the low-slung B's a lazy, lusty old thing which is does few things better than burbling down the country lanes, taking it easy. It can go fast, but it'd really rather you didn't.

Nor is it, as the pictures above show, exactly a concours example of MG's biggest hit but the punters at the country pub I pulled into didn't seem to care. For all the not-quite-there cosmetics (which I've got plans for, don't worry), what was being paraded in front of them was a delicately proportioned, traditionalist sports car in a sunny colour scheme. The open-top Astra parked next to it didn't stand a chance.

The credit for all this has to go to my dad, who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get the B back on the road, doing all sorts of James May-esque mechanical things which I don't really understand. Naturally, he'd like the favour paying back in pints.

I wonder if Adnams will let me open a credit line with them?

My MGB: defeated by the Bank Holiday weekend

ANOTHER week, another reason why my MGB isn't on the road. Only this time, it's been defeated by the Bank Holiday weekend.

This time last week I was a happy chap. The very Seventies sports car had, after what had seemed like an eternity, finally passed its MOT with flying colours. A very dull trip to the DVLA's office up in Preston now meant that it was not only taxed, but taxed for nothing, on account of it being an historic vehicle. Even the cheapo classic car insurance was ready and rolling, meaning all I had to do was jump in, fire up the old girl and drive off into the sunset. Or rather I would have done were it not for the British Bank Holiday.

You see, the slight snag was that the MOT tester noticed it was leaking coolant, which last Thursday we finally traced to being caused by a water pump that may as well have been made of clay. Usually you'd just ring up the following morning, get a new one, and have it fitted an hour later. Unfortunately, the following morning was a Bank Holiday.

In fact, the only day when it wasn't a Bank Holiday was Saturday, when Partco is open for just a few hours in the morning, and, predictably, they didn't have one on the shelves. I don't blame them; would you keep obscure bits for a long-gone sports car in stock for the one idiot who needs them? The upshot is that - as I write this column - a job that should have taken half an hour is now into its fifth day.

This, as anyone who's ever used a Bank Holiday weekend as an excuse to tinker in the garage with their pride and joy, is the nightmare of having shops shut, and I expect with another four day weekend on the way a lot of stout chaps in boiler suits are going to find themselves, thanks to the Royal Wedding, right royally knackered.

Britain's cottage industry of nailing together things in sheds depends on Bank Holiday weekends, so having the shops which supply the stuff shutting for days on end is a nightmare. It's not just cars either; I imagine there must be millions of Handy Andys, Alan Titchmarshes and Fred Dibnahs, who despite finally being freed from their everyday jobs can't buy the bits for their hobby of choice.

I'm not asking for a religious holiday to be hijacked by rampant commercialism to keep some classic car owners happy. I just want my water pump on time.

Classic cars make financial sense. Honest

THIS week, I'm contemplating starting my midlife crisis at least a decade early. How young - or old - do you have to be to own a flash convertible?

Ironically, I've been pondering this dilemma, pint in hand, because the cost of driving a family hatchback around is soaring. Petrol, the last time I looked, was a scary £1.36 a litre, but the real rise is the one which doesn't get reported very often. The cost of car insurance, whisper it quietly, has rocketed over the past two years.

There is method in the madness, and I know this because I already own one old sports car. A year's fully comp in my everyday runaround, an elderly Rover 200, is £700, which is twice what I paid for the car. Logically, you'd reason the cost of me running around in my MGB, which is faster, more valuable and infinitely more treacherous on a wet roundabout, would be in the thousands for a dangerous twentysomething like me. But it isn't. It's £150 a year.

Why? Because the MG's covered by a specialist classic car policy, which limits me to 6,000 miles a year (what I'd usually drive anyway) and classic car owners are considered by the insurance industry not to be throttle-happy hedonists, but careful drivers who lock their toys away in garages and trailer them to shows. The upshot is that the cost of normal car insurance has shot up and classic insurance hasn't.

Because I've made the mistake of being young, insurance is the single biggest car expense I have, so the idea of saving money to keep an old classic on the road rather than the Go Compare tenor on the telly is wickedly tempting. I would love, for instance, the idea of an original Mazda MX-5 in the garage, which is both old enough to be considered a classic and reliable enough to actually get you to work.

It's not even as if you need it to be a two-seater sports car either, because there's no reason you couldn't get the likes of a Golf GTi or an original BMW M5, which you can just about pretend are practical family cars, if you've got dogs or kids to haul around. Even the very first Renault Espaces, which are now well over 25 years old, can get classic cover if you ask the insurers nicely enough. Sure, they might cost you more than a knackered old banger to buy, but in most cases a carefully-chosen classic will go up - not down - in value.

All you need now is some cheap petrol to run them around on. Oh wait...

Ten years older

IT'S a makeover challenge even Gok Wan couldn't master. How do you take an already evocative classic and make it mouthwateringly inviting?

What you see above is the interior of my MGB GT, which despite being in the middle of a restoration and in need of a good hoover and clean is still an appealing place to be, like the carriage of a steam-hauled train on a heritage railway. You just don't get touches like the fonts on the chrome-ringed dials or the Mota-Lita steering wheel on a modern motor, which is part of the reason why I love sitting in it.

But give the interior over to an automotive makeover expert and it'll end looking like the one you see below, which a mechanic mate mentioned after spotting it:



Believe it or not, these are both cabins of the same model, but the owner couldn't have made it more different if he'd tried. Every single panel and patch of trim is interchangeable with the interior of my own, humbler car, but unscrew the MG octagon badge from the steering wheel and you'd swear you were in a Jag or a Bentley. It's an inviting, sumptuous place to be, and all the owner's done is replace the carpets, dash panels and trimmings with something that wouldn't look out of place in a Riva Aquarama.

It actually transforms an already stylish, unapologetically Seventies cabin into something straight out of the Sixties, and I love it. The finished result is as beautiful as a blank cheque, but I wouldn't do it simply because my wallet won't stretch far enough.

Would you?

When Top Gear used to have facts in it

THE chap at the bar, despite being someone I'd never met before, turned to me and went all car enthusiast on me.

"Where's your Mini, then?" he asked, deducing that as I was in the pub with mates from the local Mini owners' club, my notoriously fickle example would be outside in the car park, rusting quietly.

"Sold it. I've got an MG now," I responded, expecting that to be that, but a glint in his eyes somehow revealed I wasn't getting off that lightly.

"What sort of MG?" he asked.

"An MGB," I said, smug in the knowledge that the MGB, of course, is a proper MG, crafted centuries ago by stout chaps in the actual Morris Garages factory in the good old days. Not for me some Rover 25 with a Halfords bodykit. Unfortunately, I still wasn't going to be let off that lightly.

"What sort of MGB?"

Now usually I'd panic at this point because - as regular readers - will know, I'm a fully committed car enthusiast but not one who actually knows anything about how cars actually work. This could be a proper grilling from someone who actually knows how carburettors work. This could be embarrassing.

Luckily, the night before, I'd watched an old Public Information Film, which usually cover things like the Highway Code and why not to fish next to electricity pylons, but in this case it was an old Top Gear clip I'd found which might as well have been called Things you should know if you're about to get grilled by an MGB enthusiast. For once, I've actually learned something!

I'd like to lie and show you this clip I found on YouTube for the benefit of everyone who has even a vague interest in old sports cars, but really it's for the benefit of my dad, who despite knowing a trillion times more about cars than I do admits even he's got gaps in his knowledge of Britain's best selling roadster.

What's more, it's from an episode of proper Top Gear from ye olden days, so you get the idyllic image of an enthusiastic bumble through the countryside and some facts.

So there you have it, Mr Man at the Bar; I own a '72 GT in Harvest Gold with the 1.8 litre, BMC B-Series engine, four speed box with the desirable Overdrive option, Webasto sunroof and Rostyle steel wheels.

What's more, it's nearly finished and there's a summer of blasting it down country roads in the sunshine just a few months away. I can't wait.

Even an unfinished MGB is still a proper sports car

CARBURETTORS, bodywork, master brake cylinders and bonnet release cables. These are just a few of the things I'm no good at repairing.

The chap working for the RAC who I called out to revive my Rover after it temporarily died during a week of being stood in the snow while I was gadding about in Germany will already know what I'm about to tell you; despite everything I say about cars, I am no good at repairing them. Mechanics, like open-heart surgery or trying to explain the cultural appeal of Ant and Dec, is a complicated affair which I cannot hope to understand.

As a result my hat goes off to my dad, who definitely does understand how engines and cars work, ans has - over the past few months - been appointed Project Leader on the restoration of an MGB I bought last year. Nope, it still isn't finished yet, but so far he's done a cracking job.

Since last July, I've watched the '72 GT evolve from a stationary crock in a shed in Cumbria to the fully-functioning beast it is today, and though it's still a long way off from that glorious day in Spring when it'll all be finished, I have finally driven it. It's not as good as I was expecting a sports car designed in the early Sixties to be. It's much better!

I could have bought a MK1 Mazda MX-5, the sports car I actually wanted in the first place, but being an idiot I bought the MG instead for much the same reasons I bought the old Mini; I bought it because it's as smoothly sculpted as the Lakeland countryside it was resting in and because I almost felt duty bound as a petrolhead to get a bit of Britain's illustrious sports car heritage back on the road.

Despite a history of dramatic breakdowns I loved my old Mini because it felt like a sports car, but this rear wheel drive, two-and-a-bit seater with one of motoring's most evocative names actually is one. To quote the Project Leader, the newly-fettled BMC B-Series lump makes the whole car "pull like a train" but to focus on that alone would be to miss out on the beautifully balanced steering you get through the gorgeous Mota Lita wooden wheel and the throaty noise you can when you give it the beans. It's an MX-5 with an understanding of real ales.

I'll be honest; at first I wasn't sure whether the Abingdon old-timer was ever going to live up to my expectations, but now I can't wait to get it to the Buttertubs Pass in North Yorkshire and find out what Britain's best driving road feels like from a proper sports car.

It's just a shame I'll be no good at mending the inevitable mechanical guts that come with the full-throttle glory. Watch this space...

My Bad Romance with historic vehicle tax

TODAY I'd like to begin a column covering all matters motoring with Lady Gaga. An unlikely icon of our times.

Weird and wonderful in almost every measure, Miss Poker Face wears dresses made from meat, makes bizarre statements in the pages of Heat magazine, and sings songs about the joys of getting utterly smashed after drinking a tad too much red wine. But she's not yet been invited into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, whereas Madonna has.

All of which brings me neatly onto my MGB, which the DLVA are currently reclassifying as an historic vehicle, meaning the amount of road tax I have to pay is nothing. The Government quite rightly agree that cars like mine are icons of the automotive world, and because they make our roads a prettier place they're happy to allow them a tax break.

But you'll still have to stump up to run the equally worthy Mazda MX-5, Ford Escort Cosworth and Ferrari F40 because they were made after the Government's cut off point for classic cars, which is January 1, 1973, meaning that like Lady Gaga they're arguably iconic but not in a way that's accepted in any vaguely official way.

There's also a mountain of miserable motors made before 1973 that arguably aren't exciting enough to warrant free road tax - you might not remember the Hillman Avenger, but if you do you'll know it's so ugly and desperately unattractive it can't possibly be considered a classic. Designating it an Historic Vehicle is about as stupid as slapping on an Historic Market Town sign in front of Milton Keynes.

Clearly, what we need is a new organisation which can decide up ‘n' coming classics on a case-by-case basis, and clear up once and for all that the Lotus Elise, for instance, is a classic car and the Hillman Avenger isn't. Ideally, it'd be led by

Top Gear's James May - a man we can trust with the noble task of overseeing the nation's classic cars - and guided by advice from Stirling Moss, petrolhead turned TV funnyman Steve Coogan and at least one person who works for Autocar. Trust me, it's a much better system than the one we've got now!

Don't hold your breath though...