James H. Nazarian wrote:
>
> Your story is a perfect example of why MG's and other LBC got such a bad
> reputation for reliability. The dealers were irresolute idiots and incompetent
> too. The fact that many of us rebuilt and maintain our MG's to a state of
>utter
> reliability causes me to suspect that if there were a moderate number of
>trained
> dealer mechanics to service the cars way back then, the cars would have earned
> the reputation they deserved instead of the one they got. It is clear to me
>that
> the big revolution the Japanese brought to automobiles was not that they could
> design and build a better car; it is their requiring the training and
> certification of the dealers' mechanics and service departments.
I tend toward agreeing with this, especially if you add the stupid
decisions by BMH executives that effectively killed off the British
motor industry, the same kind of total idiocy that (IMO) runs Rover/BMW
now. Perhaps one mitigating factor in my case would be that we ran
"improved production" in Canada, a unique set of rules that had our 1275
Mini Cooper S's regularly beating the pants off full-race Camaros that
had just swept Sebring and other American tracks. My 850 Mini would do
105 mph and Bill Brack's 1275 S was clocked up the back straight at
Mosport at 156 MPH in 1966. Blowing the engine in an MGA was just
something you had to deal with two or three times a season, no matter
how well you built them. I just assumed the twincam was a bit more
delicate when abused to that extent. My story happened after I had run
out of engines that year.
-Rock
--
Rocky, JJ Cale Band & Pratchett Books: http://www.rocky-frisco.com
Rocky's Mini Cooper Page: http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/6437/
Mini Books: http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/6437/rockboox.html
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