SEE RESTORED ‘LOST’ MG AT RESTO SHOW

London to Sydney MGB is ready after three-year slog

A1968 MGB Roadster that contested the London to Sydney Marathon has just been restored. The MG Car Club will be unveiling the finished car at the Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show, with Discovery, at Birmingham’s NEC this Friday, 23 March.

The car was driven by Jean Denton – then a well-known racing driver who would go on to become a government minister and later a Baroness. The MG competed in the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon, a 10,000-mile event organised by the Daily Express and the first of a number of automotive marathons held during the following decade. The MGB finished in 42nd place and was the only sports car to complete the rally.

UMD 534F was last on the roads in 1981 and rediscovered in a scrapyard in 2015. It had lost some, but not all of its competition fittings, and been painted purple, but the MG Car Club’s MGB Register has now restored the car to its period 1968 condition.

MGCC project manager, John Watson, says: ‘ We were very excited to learn of the Marathon car’s reappearance and delighted to take it on as a long-term project.

‘ Without our trade partners and volunteers, who have donated parts, cash, time and skills, we would have never reached this stage.’

‘B has been returned to 1968 spec – see it at the NEC PC Resto Show this week. As found in a scrapyard. Purple, but with period tyre rack.