2003 MG ZR
This was to be the maiden motor show visit for our MG ZR, snapped up for £450 a few months earlier. But it returned from a routine outing just a week or so before it was scheduled to appear on the MG Car Club’s Z Register stand with a stoved-in front end, having come off worst in an encounter with a poorly-driven BMW whose driver promptly scarpered from the scene.
We soon got it back on the road, but our search for a replacement radiator grille in the correct shade of British Racing Green came to naught. Just as we were about to throw in the towel and cough up for having a differently coloured-bumper re-sprayed, we extended our search to its first cousin, the Rover 25; sure enough, there were a lot more of these bumpers – including ones in the correct colour – to choose from. A couple of calls to fellow ZR devotees later and a consensus emerged that the two parts were, in fact, interchangeable. It started to look like WCL’s moment of NEC fame wasn’t over before it had begun after all.
A few days later it was back up and running, just in time for its stint at the NEC – albeit with a temporarily Roverised front end. Predictably enough, the questions started rolling in as soon as the crowds started pouring through the NEC’s doors the following morning, when the show opened. Pretty soon the total number of slightly baffled showgoers trying to work out why we’d brought a Rover along to an MG party had hit double figures.
In an odd sort of way our hastily attached incorrect snout was the perfect mechanism for drawing people in and getting them to find out more about the Z Register and its work.
And there’s an even happier ending to this story, because our very own Nick Larkin still owns the – now correctly snouted – ZR to this very day.