John D's Journal

I've been told my first spoken word was "auto" but I don't remember that. I do remember being home sick in the 3rd grade and having the mother of an older kid give me a couple of copies of Sports Car Graphic magazine to cheer me up. I was familiar with the upright-radiator MG's and XK 120 Jags on used car lots at that time, was enthralled with bathtub Porsches, and had even seen a couple of "Blue Flame" 6-cylinder Corvettes, although they didn't make the the right sound for a performance car. Now I got to stare at these shapes of foreign intrigue: Austin-Healey, Allard, Aston-Martin, gullwing Mercedes 300, Ferrari. I was mesmerized! My older cousin's '49 Ford coupe with the glaspaks and fender skirts would never seem the same.

In 1971, I plunged into the ownership of a rusted '66 MGB for $700. It was followed by a Porsche Targa running straight STP for motor oil and a sundry series of British cars. Since then, some kind of old car or motorcycle always seemed to latch onto my wallet-- various MG's, a Jensen, Austin Healeys, a TR-3, a flock of VWs, an old BMW, a fly-yellow Porsche 911 RS clone with the loudest six-pack of Webers in captivity. I started racing an MG Midget and then an MGB-GT. For a few years there was even a 3-wheeled car cobbled together from a totaled Honda Civic CRX and raced winters with the Michigan Ice Racing Association.

This car was perfect for the Big Apple to Big Easy Beater Rally, which required a car costing less than $250. It deported itself well from Detroit to New York to New Orleans and back to Michigan, but the following winter it succumbed catastrophically to the effetcs of iron oxidation while competing on a frozen lake in northern Michigan.

In 1981, finding myself in graduate school in Philadelphia, my wife and I bought a partially restored 1953 MG TD with right-hand drive-- the only way to really drive British. An especially nice commission check from the good woman's work in the software industry facilitated this poorly-timed acquisition. "She-who-must-be-obeyed" immediately locked the little roadster in our 1-car garage and announced it would not come out until I completed my dissertation. By 1984, the TD was finished up and even won some car show trophies locally and at the New England MG T Register's "Gathering of the Faithful." After the first few stone chips, we started making good use of the car in the manner in which MG founder Cecil Kimber intended. We drove it. A lot.

Playing with cars and motorcycles has been a consistent theme in my life. I've crossed the country several times in "drive-away" transport cars, old pick-up trucks, and various other conveyances that seemed unlikely up to the challenge. When the New England MG T Register organized their Ocean-to-Ocean T Tourist Trophy Dash for pre-1955 MG cars, I was able to participate only marginally by running a checkpoint in eastern Pennsylvania. Carol and I did take the TD on the Register's Lap of New England rally in 1986 but a job and a young family took precedence over the Register's 50-car overseas excursion, the Circuit of Britain, and the Kimber Alaskan Challenge to the Arctic Circle a couple of years later. The 2011 MG Rallye to Reno will now be my chance to test the mettle of antiquated British engineering, my rudimentary mechanical skills, and an undeniably iron butt.

Twenty-five years since it's last real "once-over," and powered by an unknown motor that had nothing more than seals, gaskets and ancillaries rebuilt back then, the little MG-TD will need a thorough mechanical reconditioning over the 2010-2011 winter. Electrics, brakes, rebuild the head, check the bearings, add a US-spec directional signal system and maybe upgrade with relays and some fuses...there's really quite a long list. Where to start?

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