The B in GT guise lodged itself in my consciousness like the girl you went to school with, who one day, all of a sudden, was drop-dead gorgeous. That profile, the brightwork, the wire wheels and promise of three-season service. How could I explain attaining middle age without owning this car? I’d had a Midget for many years, but the B GT was something more. It was the difference between having to drive, and wanting to.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the Vikings (American) football team, the Minnesota Twins baseball team, Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam (more or less) and filmmakers the Coen brothers, is a nice place to live. But touching Canada, in the north-central U.S., Minnesota is a land of brutal winters, where gearboxes, dampers and radio buttons freeze in place and salt paints roads and cars the same whitish grey. It’s not an oasis of rust-free cars. Fortunately however, for locating virtually any car made, there is the internet.

The BGT resides with kin in the seller’s Marietta, Georgia, garage. The backwards headrest was one of several quirks easily corrected.

“If you’re looking for a daily driver, this is it.” I was, and the red, wire-wheel ‘69 that accompanied this cursory pitch looked very good- in a few 1×1 photos. I called, grilled the seller-
“Do you still have it?”…
“Yes”…

“I’ll take it” and sent him a deposit. Then I booked a one-way flight to Atlanta, Georgia, 1100 miles south east of Minneapolis.

The seller was in the suburb of Marietta. I waited for him at the bus stop there, picturing the B GT, with its white-on-black Smiths gauges, comfortable seats set low with your legs out in front of you, the 1.8’s carburettor-ed, pushrod-four burble, and a scent of aging wool carpets and leather whether it had any or not. The seller was the owner’s mechanic. He met me in an unrestored 4.2 E-Type coupe. “British cars are for driving,” he said.

What waited for me in his garage was a surprise compared to the tiny photos. Tucked in a corner, the red B GT showed signs of long-term residency. The windshield was filthy, fogging at the edges, and the whole car was dusty. The driver’s headrest was in backwards, nearly obscured by the sagging headliner. And the body, beneath the dust and fading paint (I was told it needed a respray), was not the rust-free southern car, with exceptions, I had envisioned. The seller had mentioned only two small spots of rust beneath the trim strip on one side. Instead the paint was bubbled along the body’s lower edge from the front wheels to the rear.

“Twenty-foot car” is a cautionary term. The tiny photos I’d seen probably scaled out to a 100 yards.

Fortunately, the car’s owner arrived and changed everything. He had shop staff wash it, blacken the tires, and swap two hoses well past their sell-by date. I reversed the headrest and pulled out the sagging headliner, which was one that the owner had added-leaving the original intact below. We talked all the while, and this man loved MGs. His TC was a only few cars away in the workshop getting a full restoration. He’d lavished care on the B GT, but he lacked the space for it. And the three daughters who had each taken the car to college had no further use for her. “Maggie,” as they called her, needed a new home and my interest in the opportunity was back in overdrive.

Cleaned up, “Maggie” is more the stuff of dreams. Wire wheels aren’t fully true-but look great

When I twisted the key, the robust 1.8 spun quickly to life. The owner had added a Monza silencer that gave the engine a bigger, more aggressive sound. The dum-dum-dum of the exhaust note filled the shop. In my hands, the large, thin-rimmed wheel had a classy feel. Through its spokes, the needles on the chrome-rimmed Smiths moved to their proper marks.

The gear lever dropped crisply into first and I took the car up the drive. It sputtered as I turned into traffic, but a quick increase in choke smoothed out power. It was an auspicious first drive until I rounded a corner to find a large line of cars ending with a dump truck. Habitual pedal pressure did nothing, so I jammed it hard enough to lift a ten-stone weight stack-and suddenly grasped the phrase “stand on the brakes.” (Later maintenance would reveal right-side brake pads worn down to the backing plates.)

Otherwise the car ran well and looked great. The owner had maintained it devotedly until recent months and rebuilt the engine ten years before. We traded keys for cashier’s checks and I pointed the car north.

A profile for the ages. The B GT turns heads everywhere it goes-even if not everyone knows what it is.

Cleaned up, with a few hoses swapped, Maggie is ready to head north (for now).

I’d read that Bs handle well and the rumours are true. For a thirty-five year old car, this one handled great, cornering flat and with confidence on its Michelin radials, with only a hint of high-speed meander from the wire wheels. The owner had trued them for years at a specialist’s, but that man had told him that the spokes were starting to seize up and he could do no more. Below 60 mph it was a non-issue and I wasn’t pressing hard tonight. The winding roads and rolling hills near the Tennessee border provided ample pleasures at 40 to 50 mph. I savoured these roads till about midnight before finding the last room at the hotel in Winchester, Tennessee.

The owner rebuilt the original engine ten years ago. It runs like a watch, and uses no oil. At some point, the generator was swapped for an alternator.

The car’s clean interior, including original steering wheel wrapped in leather, was one of the enticing views on the seller’s website. Conscientious owner has original owner’s manual tucked into passenger footwell.

I had planned to skip the highways and stick to the local roads, but the following day was much different from the night before. Heavy traffic and frequent stoplights slowed progress to a crawl. A leisurely pace was fine, but not stop-and-go driving. I roared up the next expressway ramp and dropped the car into overdrive. The wire wheels wandered a little but less than my pickup does with its aimless power steering.

First petrol stop, in northern Georgia. At this point, car is running great-though off-side mirror is loose. A prior driver got too close to a high kerb.

Switching off the overdrive caused the car to lose power. A road being constructed under an overpass provided a shady resting spot. After 20 minutes, the car started and ran fine.

Highway speeds promised a prompt return home. It was a lie.

On an uphill stretch, swarming with traffic and crowded by roadside construction, I clicked off the overdrive for a little more torque. The B choked. Switching back had no effect. The engine sputtered and the speedometer needle plummeted. I was a few feet off the ground with only one candle-power brake lights, now dropping to a crawl in front of charging pickups and SUVs. I feathered the accelerator and hoped none of the behemoth pilots behind was dialing his phone or trying to read a road map.

Car and I reached the top of the hill and pulled up beneath a bridge that was under construction. After twenty minutes to cool, the engine fired without a miss. Temperature and oil pressure were fine, the idle smooth and quiet. I returned to surface roads long enough to prove that whatever gremlin had tweaked a wire was now gone, off in search of a Jaguar. I got back on the interstate and dropped the pedal. The B’s four pulled strong to highway speed. I let the engine sing above three grand until my last doubts vanished, then flicked the overdrive switch and an idiot light went on in my head. The car coughed, sputtered and slowed to a creeping pace. Another rest in the shade and it fired up with the same false promises. Twice bitten, thrice got a clue.

Fuel-line rust brought progress to a halt. Fortunately, a British-car specialist was only ten miles away.

The BGT among friends-including E-Type, MGB, and MGA-in Nashville, Tennessee.

Troubles behind, Maggie reaches Minnesota’s southern border, two hours from her new home.

Home at last. Elegant British sports car joins author’s workhorse truck and wife’s trusty Golf.

The overdrive unit was electrical, so wasn’t the problem as well? But why didn’t switching it off end the trouble? My suspicions settled on the coil. It was failing and the extra draw of the overdrive was shutting it down. Yet after it cooled, it was strong enough to start and run the car…. Seemed like a sound theory, but I wanted a mechanic’s confirmation. The nearest town was Hendersonville, Tennessee, ten miles northeast of Nashville.

Monza exhaust is prior owner’s addition, but it sounds good and doesn’t compromise B GT’s sporting looks.

Kris’ B GT in its new setting

I turned onto Hendersonville’s main thoroughfare and into a convenience store. A high school heartbreaker with a bare midriff directed me to a garage her family used. They sent me to another, and that one to a third, and on to a fourth. Each had some thoughts or anecdotes about MGs, but no interest in fixing mine. As I pulled into a fifth garage, with the word “European” in the name, I saw only modern BMWs and Saabs. The desk man confirmed they didn’t work on old Brits. I didn’t budge.

“There was a place,” he said, “in Nashville. I don’t know if they’re still around.” Still, I didn’t budge. “Hold on.” He dialed some friend, then scratched a number on a pad for J.D.’s British Cars. I put it in my pocket. There was an auto parts store next door and I was thinking about that coil.

Instead of laughing, the store clerk said yes, he did have a coil for a 1969 MGB GT. Driving classic cars has a way of making one believe in destiny. If this store had the part I was seeking, that had to be the problem. I bought it and the tools to install it and sweated in the parking lot till the job was done. The car started with more power than ever.

An hour and a lunch later, I was back on the shoulder. Accelerating to highway speed Maggie had gagged again. And this time she wasn’t coming back. I rummaged through my pocket and extracted a phone number, hoping the place was still in business. When I dialed, a voice said, “J.D.’s British Cars.” I explained my predicament, he recited a towing service number and soon I was sitting in the cab of a truck heading back to Nashville. The ‘B’ followed, back end up, front wheels rolling.

J.D. was a tall man, whose serious face belied his generous nature. His shop was a large brick warehouse still wearing a prior occupant’s faded name, “Olson’s Garage.” It now had Bentleys, Jaguars, Lotus Europa, Aston Martin Vantage and other worthy vehicles scattered about. He let me snoop around while he took a preliminary look at my car. He didn’t think the problem was anything major. I checked into a nearby hotel, then grabbed some enchiladas and beer at a Mexican restaurant.

J.D.’s mechanics dug into my car first thing in the morning. The seller told me he replaced the gas tank, but apparently he hadn’t touched the fuel lines. They were filled with rust. J.D. cleared out the fuel system, replaced the fuel pump, cleaned and balanced the carbs and then timed the engine. He took the wheel and we stormed the highway for a brief check. Car ran like a watch, overdrive included, it even seemed more nimble, with my wallet 560 US dollars lighter.

I hit the road with new resolve. The sky was clear, traffic moderate, the car was running perfectly and I was rested. I set no night’s destination: I just wanted to shift a big chunk of miles from the windshield to the rear-view mirror.

As the B charged northward, the idea of parking in front of my own house, climbing out of a car seat and doing a lot of not driving became increasingly appealing. At a gas station in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with Corvettes roaring past on the final quarter mile of their pilgrimage to the National Corvette Museum, I plotted the remainder of my trip-through Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, up to the Minnesota border. From there to Minneapolis I didn’t need a map.

With a few hours’ roadside napping and a stop for duct tape to prevent the late-breaking rain from coming in around the dry-rotted wiper arm seals, I covered the miles without incident. The B ran perfectly and I was home late the following morning.

That evening, my wife and I took the B to the grocery store and lined up the bags beneath the hatch. She likes the car and it’s a perfect ride for the two of us.
Long live the MGB GT.

Kris E. Palmer

Photos by Kris and also by his friend Lee Klancher, a motorbooks editor and photographer

Kris at the wheel