the funniest thing I find about this whole ide4a that a new MG shout be a
no compromises cars, is that the old MG's were full of compromises. They
were FAR from the best and most current technology, What Cecil Kimber and
the chaps at Abingdon did was not design a car without compromises, but
rather, assemble a bunch of ill fitting parts, and carefully engineeer
thier inter-relationship so that this compromise of a car performed
fabulously.
Pick your favourite MG of yester, year be it the A, the B or whatever, and
ask yourself if you would pay 30k or more for a new car that looked lot
like it, had new electronic and interior, but none of the modern creture
comforts. I sure wouldn't.
MG's were inexpensive sports cars, and to make them inexpensive, as many
commonly available parts were used as possible. How many times do you have
to read about the fellow in the MG whatever who got the needed part for his
car from a FARM EQUIPMENT dealer in the middle of nowhere to realize that
these cars were never "no compromise" vehicles.
The "MG spirit" is one of compromise, to do the best with what you have, in
the market that's there. I think the MGF qualifies. From ground zero,
almost 20 years after the marque left production, a team of engineers built
a car I think Cecil Kimber would be proud of. It handles well, it perfoms
well, and it sells well.
I haven't seen an F on the road, but I have seen photos, and frankly, yes
it has that elliptic look to it common to most cars today, but it also, to
my eye, had an aggressive, hunched, road hungry look to it. I like it.
and in many ways it is true to the MG heritage, so many of it's components
are scavenged of other BL vehicles, but the MG people who desinged her, put
them together in a way that makes it drive well by all accounts. OK, it's
not front engine, RWD, so what? the goal of an MG is not to take some
arbitrary design classification , and use a cookie cutter to make a copy of
it, but to start from what you have, and put the pieces together in a way
that makes the car drive and handle like a sports car. It doens't look like
an A or a B, so what? The A and the B don't look like each other either.
OK, so it has alot of creature comforts, think you could sell a new car
today without them? And look at your B's with AC and heaters, or is AC
okay, but power windows not? There is a purist school of thought that says
roll up windows have no place on a sports car, much less AC and a heater.
If the F were available here, I'd sure take one out for a drive, and if it
handles as well as the reviewers say, I'd buy one finances permitting.
Greg,
'62 Midget, side curtains with the optional heater.
"But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
Yeats
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