(1962-80) MGB ROADSTER

In at number 20 in our countdown to Britain’s favourite first car is the MGB – one owner explains why she still has her first car after 31 years

‘Ipassed my driving test in 1987 and bought a 1978 MGB roadster, aged 19, a year later. A friend was selling it and the idea of having my own open-topped car was really appealing because I’d been sharing a 1984 Austin Metro with my brother. The MG was ten years old and in good shape – or so I thought – so it was pressed into service as my everyday transport. I did a 60-mile commute in it each day for the next two years before a change of job cut this by two-thirds, but by 1994 my ’B was looking tired.

‘A work colleague called Colin liked to tinker with old cars and he volunteered to repaint my MG if I helped him to strip the paint. We covered the car in Nitromors then realised the enormity of the task ahead and Colin decided that the job was too big for him. It needed replacement doors and new front and rear wings because mine were full of filler and wholesale replacement made more sense than just patching things up.

‘ With Colin having run for the hills, I enlisted my neighbour, Phil, to finish the car. He repainted the MG but died unexpectedly very soon after, leaving with me with an MG in pieces. My brother stepped in to fix the electrics and get the car running properly, but the engine really needed a rebuild.

‘It was at this point that I entered into a rather bizarre transaction. A friend volunteered to overhaul the MG’s engine because he, er, needed a sheepdog. My partner and I just so happened to have one, so Ben (the dog, not my partner…) found himself with a new owner and in return my ’B was running sweetly once more.

‘By this point I’d had my MG for ten years and it had become a second car, although I still took it out when I could. Then I became a mum in 2002, and with the MG having just two seats, it languished in storage for a few years before returning to the road in 2006.

‘It was still used only sparingly for the next decade, partly because in 2014 I bought a TR7 convertible to go with the Stag that I’d acquired in 2009.

‘In 2017, I decided to bite the bullet and get the car properly back on the road. The engine was rebuilt and Roger Greening, a friend in the Triumph Sports Six Club, volunteered to set everything up properly in return for a small donation to his favoured good causes.

‘Sorting out the electrics and getting the engine to run properly ended up taking him two months, off and on, but the car finally returned to the road at the end of 2018 – just before my daughter started learning to drive. And she’s now got her eye on it, so it’s not going anywhere…’