MG Car Club of South Australia
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MGC NEWS MGC conversations by Richard Mixture , March 2017
MGCs Down Under
ello , it ’ s Richard here again with another story . You know that nice young Register co-ordinator , Ian , well he and his wife invited Mrs Mixture and me around for lunch one Sunday recently . His wife asked Ian and me how many articles had we ( I think she meant me ) written for the Club ? I thought maybe 25 or so and Ian thought it must be at least 30 ! Well it turns out to be 130 articles over the last 12 years . I was so staggered I had to sit down and have a cup of English Breakfast .
Well that nice young fella ’ s wife , pretty thing she is too , ask “ why don ’ t you two write a book ?” Ian rolled his eyes and said “ yeah one day ”. Well that was last year and now Ian tells me he has a book nearly ready to go ! Blimey , he ’ s a fast worker . He ’ s been to Melbourne and he ’ s been to Brisbane talking to MGC owners , even to that nice old Queenslander Bruce , and he ’ s taken lots of photos , hundreds he tells me .
He showed me the contents page the other day and it looks very interesting . He ’ s going to call it “ MGCs Down Under ”. What a good name . The first chapter describes a bit of MGC history , just for the uninitiated mind you , and tells about the Aussie link , you know the Australian built Blue Streak engine that the Factory trialled in a ‘ B ’. The next chapter is about Bruce ’ s story ; yes he is a nice old Queenslander . Then there are Bruce ’ s tech tips . Well , after owning an MGC for
26 nearly 50 years I guess you ’ d have to know a thing or two about them wouldn ’ t you ? Then after that there are more tech tips from yours truly , I bet you were wondering when I ’ d be featuring . This will include some of the articles that have featured in the Club magazine over the past 12 years . I still can ’ t believe it ’ s that long !
Next there are several personal stories of eight MGC owners both in Australia and New Zealand . The Kiwi owners have been leading lights in the NZ Register endeavouring to identify every MGC in the islands of the Long White Cloud . There ’ s a story about the NZ Register Historian ’ s red roadster and one on his assistant ’ s Old English White GT . There are a couple of stories about two beautifully restored cars , again one GT and one roadster ; the GT is an English car brought back to Australia by an Aussie visitor to that nascent land way back in the ‘ 80s and the other is an imported North American car . Then there ’ s a story about the historic racer that needed a bit more grunt so he supercharged his MGC and a mate who thought it was a good idea and wanted one too . Both supercharged cars are red roadsters . Of course red is a good colour for a roadster so there ’ s a story about a grey haired gentleman with a nicely restored English car up thar in them hills and one describing a blue one up thar in them Hinterlands . The blue roadster is the earliest Car in the Aus-