MG Enthusiast Magazine MG Enthusiast September 2013 Retour à l'édition précédente

It seems as though the MG3 has been dominating my editorial column of late, but that is hardly surprising given that it is such a make-or-break model for the marque in the UK. And this month there has been excellent news on the financial front, with MG Motor releasing very tempting prices for the new supermini. Turn to p6 for the facts and figures. However, there is another story that has
been occupying my mind this month, and that one is rooted way back in the 1960s. Regular
readers will have seen the story last month of Kevin Martin and the PA he has taken over from his mother. That car has a few cosmetic issues here and there, but it also has such a lovely patina that it would be a crying shame to restore it and wash all of that history away. This month we return to the same car, but in the 1960s when Gillian Martin first bought it. She and husband Peter took the PA on an incredible adventure to the Lebanon to work in the Middle East, later driving it all the way back to the UK across Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and many more exotic places. Just
reading about their adventure (p60) fills me with admiration, and explains why I say it would be a crime to restore out the patina. As well as being a fascinating story in its own right, it also brings home the fact that people such as Peter and Gillian thought nothing of such an adventure driving a car which would make most of us today think twice before tackling any trip of more than an hour or two. You do have to wonder which have changed more over the intervening five decades – the cars or the drivers! And that makes Iain Ayre’s essay on preparing his MGB for a 1000 mile trip around the mountains of British Columbia most timely. Turn to p34 for that, and whatever your particular preference in terms of MG era and use, I do hope you enjoy the issue.