Well I do have a question about your statement that the Jaguars are
"boulevardiares". Not sure what you are saying here but assume you mean
while they are nice and "cushiony" in ride that they are not that
enjoyable to drive. Well I drive a 97 Jaguar XJ-R. It is, IMHO, one of
the most enjoyable cars I have ever had the pleasure to drive or won. It
has a tremendous ride but you shoudl see the looks on the young guy's
driving the Mustang GT when the family mobile leaves them at a traffic
light. The car has 370 HP and although a somewhat heavy car, it is an
awesome performing sedan. HOWEVER, I must admit, the MG is driven more
(mainly becasue I have to keep the Jaguar until my kids graduate from
college ;- ) ) and can't be putting a tremendous amount of miles on it.
Now if I could figure out how to get a Jaguar XK8 without my wife finding
out ;- )
Bob
79 MGB
77 MG Midget
74 MGB GT
97 Jaguar XJ-R
On Tue, 7 Dec 1999 MGMagnette@aol.com wrote:
> I think the best way to guess the price of an MGB today would be to compare
> it to the price for a Miata now. Its is very hard to compare car prices
> backwards and forwards like that. In the 60's a car that was three years old
> was in most cases well and truly shot. No american car was certainly worth a
> damn over 75,000 miles. They were cheap and had low quality. Now we make
> much better quality cars the last a hell of a lot longer. But they also cost
> a great deal more, with the average middle class family no longer replscing
> thier csr every two or three years.
> My favorite advertisment is as as-seen on the back of an old MGB Driver
> issue. I no longer have it, but the prices for the Midget MG1100 MGB and MG
> Magnette were listed. The cheapest car was the basic sidescreens and rubber
> floored Midget, then the MG 1100 (the best selling car platform in Britain
> back then), the MGB and the Magnette. The MG 1100 was a truly advanced
> little automobile, especially compared to the truly antique-even when
> new-Midget. The Magnette, when fully equiped with an automatic transmission
> radio and rimbellishers cost one half more again than the MGB. The Magnette
> is in the $30,000 near-luxury class today... which put the MGB at about
> $20,000 which is what a decent Miata costs and thus we run full circle.
> So if we had to buy a MGB today it would be abuot $20,000.
> But, I don't expect BMW to produce an MGB. They will make a super-B of
> some sort in a higher price market. The MG name I don't think means cheap
> and cheerful to most people any more. In fact its been out of the American
> lexicon for so many years that MG could mean anything BMW wants it to mean.
> I think MG will come back as a premium high quality sporty-car maker. They
> will also have some front wheel drive sedans. The sports cars will all be
> RWD. We already know the next MGF replacement will not be mid-engined, so we
> can drop that thought from the start, it will be a BMW Z based car which
> should make it rather nice. I think that BMW has a strong leaning towards
> making 'image cars' like the Rover 75 and the car James Bond just drove (but
> got sliced in half, HA!). BMW is also masters of building car in small
> quantities at a profit. It is truly a unique ability among large
> manufacturers. BMWs abilities and thier past suggest we can see some sort of
> very special limited production Super-MG in the future. It would be almost
> certainly BMW engined.
> Lets be happy though that BMW is in control and not say Ford. For as
> nice as the are, JAguars are boulevardiares. Now it would be nice to have a
> four seat MG convertible like a YT again, but we need most of all a two seat
> sports car.... HEY NEW THREAD... THE RECCOMENDED MG PRODUCT LINE UP
>
> John
>
> John Elwood
> Visit The World's Greatest Site Devoted to Farina Magnettes:
> http://www.mgcars.org.uk/farina
>
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