MGB Roadster

It may have come with an uprated engine but its beauty was skin deep.

An big engine isn’t much good if your floorpans have been bodged together with fibreglass. We chart the resurrection of a sypmathetically uprated MGB.

When I was in college (happy days!), one of the pictures I proudly displayed on the wall of my room was an advertisement for the ‘73 MGB. The caption read Your Mother Wouldn’t Like it. Said poster also featured a rather attractive female ...but I digress! What I’m getting at, is that I’ve long held a candle for the good-old ‘B. Indeed, until I became sidelined by the Porsche 924S I recently bought, I was actually contemplating buying a GT.

Which is why the feature MGB Roadster was not only a joy to spend the day with, but brought back many happy memories. Belonging to Phil Gundy, it’s a beauty. Although now retired, Phil (who has a hugely-impressive track record, having spannered on a wide variety of very successful competition cars over the years), was a toolmaker/machinist/ engineer by trade, and involved with such projects as making specialist parts for Concorde. So, he knows his way around a lathe, is a dab hand at technical drawing, works to the most exacting standards... and is happy to enlist specialist help when needed.

All of which probably explains why RVV 572K, a 1971 Roadster in Blaze, looks as good as it does. Not that it’s always been this attractive mind you, even when it left Abingdon some 45 years ago.

“I got into classics in the mid ’90s,” recalls Phil. “This was when I built a Dolomite 1850-powered Robin Hood kit car. The Robin Hood is a kind of Lotus Seven replica. I did a number of improvements to it, including redesigning the front suspension, and it served my wife and I well for many years. We travelled all around the