[Leica] Re: LUG Digest, Vol 34, Issue 395

[jbcollier at shaw.ca (John Collier)]

All of this is well documented and a sad tale indeed to read. While  
MG sports cars were profitable and selling well, Triumph sport cars,  
which were not profitable nor selling well, managed to garner all the  
R&D cash that BLM had. They came up with such winners as the Triumph  
Stag and first series TR7s. Triumph hated MG and made sure they had  
no R&D funds.

Regardless of all we have said about Lucas electrics, and your  
experiences, an early MGB is one of the best sports cars out there  
for a hobbyist.

John

On 7-Apr-07, at 5:53 AM, Brian Ampolsk wrote:

> Well,  Lucas was certainly part of the problem... but NOT the whole  
> problem.  I  bought a new MGB in 1977.  It was the first model with  
> catalytic  converter.  What a disaster!!!  the so-called engineers  
> had apparently cut 8 or 10 inches out of the exhaust and stuck in a  
> catalytic converter.  Well,  that screwed  up the balance of the  
> exhaust system so that it pulled against the manifold creating  
> space, and then cracking the exhaust manifold. In three miserable  
> years, I went through three exhaust manifolds and four complete  
> exhaust systems.  When I finally traded  the  beast in 1980 for a  
> volvo, it needed exhaust system number 5.  Now, there had been a  
> recall on this.  What MG did was to insert a piece of asbestos  
> between the exhaust system and the manifold.  of  course,  that  
> also came loose.  And, this  was only one  problem...  imagine my  
> surprise when on the Schuykill  Expy stuck in traffic, my car  
> started to overheat...  well (and this may indeed have been  
> Lucas),  it turns out that the radiator fans (there were two) were  
> electrically driven and thermostatically controlled.  Anyway, the  
> fuses had the wonderful attribute of blowing in traffic.  There was  
> a vast  array of other problems with this car.  It was my last   
> british car.