My guess is that US dealers ordered them without OD to keep the price down,
since they were already relatively expensive compared to smaller domestic
cars. Buyers in California and Canada were savvy enough to specifically
order OD, knowing the wide open spaces they would encounter. Other western
US states probably did not import nearly as many as California, and buyers
in the eastern states where MGs first became popular used them on backroads,
not interstates.
--
Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the primer red one with chrome wires
on 1/13/08 7:23 AM, Paul Hunt at paul.hunt1@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
> Back in November 2007 a topic cropped up that appears from time to time, on
> just how many cars were equipped with overdrive for the North American
> market, opinion being that it was quite small. As well as wondering why
> this should be, I also wondered how it compared to the UK, where I'd have
> said overdrive was more the rule than the exception. I live quite close to
> BMIHT and enquired about access to the records and they said it would be
> possible, although I didn't really want to have to go through all
> half-million individual build records (although a few sample ones would be
> fun). It occurred to me that 18V engines had prefixes which indicated
> whether OD was fitted or not - presumably the engine/gearbox assembly was
> ordered and received as a complete unit, so all I really needed was records
> of the purchase orders for these from Abingdon to Engines branch. I *then*
> realised that the information had been staring me in the face all along, as
> it is included in Clausager in the Engine section.
>
> They make interesting reading. From November 1973 (when the engine number
> indicated whether OD was fitted or not) to the end of production there were
> 48,457 engines fitted to Home and non-North American export cars, of which
> fully 97% had overdrive (they were standard in Home market cars from the 77
> model year onwards). For North America from August 71 (engines for this
> market were separately prefixed at an earlier date) of 186,542 engines only
> 17% had overdrive, which is a huge difference to other markets. There are
> other interesting differences. When Canada had its own engines from August
> 1975, and California from June 1976, more than 25% had overdrive, while in
> the same period the USA other than California only had 17%, another
> significant difference. Even odder, when Japan had Californian spec for the
> last few months of production, they were 100% equipped with overdrive.
>
> So why did so few North American cars have overdrive? And why did Canada
> and California have significantly more than the rest of the USA?
>
> Full figures at http://www.mgb-stuff.org.uk/wn_gearsframe.htm and click on
> 'Overdrive - How popular was it?"
>
> PaulH.
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