Hi fellow MG enthousiasts,
Seen in an article in one of the new Classic Car magazines here in Holland:
"in 1980, there were still about 500 MGs registered in Holland.
In 1998, there are about 3500 MGs registered in Holland.
And so, MG is the fastest growing, no longer existing car marque in Holland"
A few notes from me:
1. The writer obviously does not know about the MGF, so, in fact, he is
wrong with his claim that MG does no longer exist.
My guess, however, is, that there are no more than about 10 (ten) MGFs
in Holland and 1 or 2 MG RV8s.
The remaining (from the 1980s) badge-engineered Austins, being MG Metros
and MG Montegos can not be more that about 50 or so.
2. Just to get an idea: Holland has about the same area (and climate)
as Connecticut, but slightly over 15,000,000 inhabitants.
3. About 3000 MGs have been added to the MG population. I believe this to be
quite likely. When I was looking into buying an MGB myself, about 10 years
ago, there were virtually only those that had been imported new into Holland.
When interest in MGBs picked up dramatically, a few years later, for a brief
period (influenced, a.o., by currency exchange ratios) used MGBs were
imported
from Britain.
However, since the steering wheel was not on the correct side of the car,
these are not to everybody's liking.
Nowadays, when the weather is fine (like on this Saturday morning), you
can be
sure to see quite a few MGs and Triumphs on the road.
The majority of these are ex-USA cars, as can easily be seen by the initiated
from distinctive features that are different from Euro specs cars
(on the B: triple wipers, marker lights, Abingdon pillow dashboard etc.)
So, it is safe to say that about 2,500 ... 3,000 MGBs have been shipped, in
the last
ten years, from the USA to Holland. That's 5 to 6 times as many as there
already were!
So, fellow listers out there in the USA, if you ever wondered, where all
your classic cars have gone, here is one of the answers!
Bert
1970 MGB (that has always been in Holland, except on trips, of course...)
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