A
Factory V8 Roadster?
Hall
& Co advertisement
Built in 1975 for one of the managers at the MGB factory in
Abingdon to his own specification. An MGB Roadster with a V8
engine and fitted for the German market.
When it had been completed it was put into environmentally controlled
storage without being registered or driven. In 1998 the car
was sold completely unused and finally registered. The car has
only seen light usage since then and has mainly been used for
classic road runs such as the Kimber road run in Derbyshire
and a few Historic Rally Car Register events in Northern France
and the Benelux countries. Only 5,600 kms! More
Mysterious
MGB Roadster with V8 power could have been an Abingdon factory
special
The
car was featured in a recent article in MG Enthusiast with the
headline posing the question so often repeated over the years.
MG
Enthusiast article
LHD German specification V8 Roadster finished in Vermillion
This V8 Roadster is reported to have the VIN ADO23/2348, was
on display at the MG Car Club's annual MGLive! festival at Silverstone
and sold by Brown & Gammons to Pamela Ward-Hall and registered
as 800 MGB.
Thanks to Club Vice Presidents Don Hayter
and Ron Gammons, to David Knowles and to John Watson for shedding
light on this car.
Posted: 310811
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After
looking at a LHD V8 Roadster finished in Vermillion
advertised for sale in Lincolnshire, George Dowse
from Tyneside contacted us for information on the
car. He wanted to know whether it was a "Factory
V8 Roadster" as was suggested in an article
in the current issue of MG Enthusiast.
Claims that mysterious V8 Roadsters were supposedly
built by the Factory have cropped over the years
and the late Geoff Allen, the V8 Historian who had
worked in Rectifications Department for 27 years
until the Factory closed, was clear there were none
built there. But this car was described as an MGB
Roadster "built in 1975 for a manager at the
MG factory in Abingdon to his own specification
with a V8 engine and fitted for the German market".
Our research over the last few days has shed more
light on the history of this car.
The car is almost certainly one of the O series
programme MGBs, whose engines went to Longbridge
and Triumph when the MG Factory development closed,
which Cliff Humphries built. That is what we hear
from Don Hayter who adds Cliff "bought it as
it was and presumably also an engine and gearbox
separately which he took away and assembled himself.
I saw the car at his home in Challow and I believe
he had it stolen from there but it was recovered.
I am fairly sure it was not built in MG. Geoff Allen
wrote an article on it". Don adds that "my
own MGB was also an O |
series
car but had the underbonnet wheelarch and other
changes done at Pressed Steel Swindon so it could
be sent down the MG production line and built less
the engine to prove the assembly. Hence mine has
a GHN chassis number. No O series cars were made
to V8 specification."
David Knowles' view is "I think the car in
question is probably the one that Cliff Humphries
built - the chassis number comes from a LHD 1976
facelift MGB development car, one of a batch of
around eleven. I suspect that this car is therefore
like Don Hayter's MGB V8 Roadster - a very special
and interesting car built by people with MG factory
credentials, but not exactly an MGB V8 Roadster
prototype!" |
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