Thread: British Car Show

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Before we left on the hamburger trip, I had noticed online that there was a British Car show in Natchez, MS, which is very close to me. We made the burger trip on Friday and the car show was on Saturday. We stopped by the show host hotel on the way home just to see if there were some cars there.

There were a few cars and people standing around talking, so we got out and I struck up a conversation. Very nice folks. We chatted about cars for a while and they said I should come back for the show. Turns out that even though my car isn’t really British, they had a class for kit cars.

Ok, great, except I have 280 miles of Louisiana bugs plastered on the front of the car and other road grime. Took the car home, put it on the rack and spent the next several hours spit shining the old girl.

This show was in the same place as the concours I attended earlier this year, but there were a bunch more cars.

Compared to the shows I normally go to; this one was fairly short. Only about 6 hours, but everybody appeared to have a good time. Lots of nice British cars. There were even quite a few modified cars. Resto-mods if that applies to British cars. Many had upgraded intakes, exhaust and ignitions. Mag type wheels and wider tires. There were even a couple of MGB’s that had had Rover V8’s swapped in. The V8 MGB was apparently offered in Britian with the Rover engine and the engines fit well. The two at the show looked like they had been factory installed.

The Healey was a hit with most of the crowd and it won a blue ribbon in the kit car class. Of course, it was the only kit at the show. That’s ok with me, many folks seemed to enjoy looking it over and that’s good enough for me.

The two MGB’s with V8’s.









Many Triumphs and MG’s.







Valve cover racing British style

The V8 Mg's are cool, thanks for sharing. The show photos made me think back to my '63 Triumph I bought as a teenager.
Oh, Congrats on the blue ribbon, winning is always good, regardless of the circumstances.
Nolan

Yes, thanks for the show pics and I agree, V-8 MG's are cool! And also congrats on the class win. competition stiff or slack, doesn't mean a thing the next day, you've got the ribbon.

A bit of a Hijack, all of those MGB's remind me of my Navy days down at NAS Corpus Christi. I was living off base, and had seen an ad posted on the Navy Exchange bulletin board, MGB for sale. I tagged a buddy, who happened to have a nearly new B to go with me, and we found the BRG MGB at a low rent apartment just outside the gates, occupied by a pair of Navy WAVES. The owner said that it wouldn't start, and hadn't run for months, and she just needed it gone. Two engine mechs, we had it lit off in about 10 minutes, paid her $200 and got the signed title, and were off! On the way home it had a terrible front end shake at about 60 to 65, but it you pushed through it smoothed out again.
I drove that MGB for about a year, abusing it terribly with street racing, power shifts, revs well past the redline and trips to Padre Island running the surf. I had weekend duty and was called to muster early afternoon Saturday. A beautiful day, I dropped the top and headed to the base in the B. On Ocean Drive, the beautiful bay to my left I took the last curve and opened it up for the run to the base. As it hit 60 the wobble was heavy and the hood popped open, wrapping up over the windshield and bonking my forehead at the hairline, no cut but got my attention, as did the blocked view! I pulled off, unwrapped the hood, and safety wired it down for a quick trip back to the apartment to get the Dodge.
The guys at the airframes shop beat it into shape enough to latch the hood again, but had to drill through the sheet metal to secure the hinges with a pair of USN bolts - the sheet metal had torn when it wrapped over the windshield.
About 6 months later Sam, the guy who had gone with me to see the B, was headed home, and asked what I was going to do with the B. He knew the history and abuse, but thought it would be a good spare parts car, and offered me $200. SCORE!! I'd put a bunch of fun miles on it, let it bonk me in the head, and put more miles on trying to see how tight the engine could wind, and I was getting my money back? DEAL!!

OK, sorry for the Hijack but once triggered the memory needed to be told! Back to your original programming.....