As it happens, I used to own a 1978 MGB, a pretty orangish-red, black rag-top, black leather interior, five speed standard transmission. I don’t have any scanned photographs of “Baby,” but this guy’s car is very similar. (Mine didn’t have the orange-gold detailing on the lower half of the side panels.)
I found the picture at the left of an MGB that could have been mine, in the location it belongs: a used car lot! And I loved that little car, even though I didn’t fit in it particularly well — with the top up, I had to sqrunch down, and with the top up, it was a choice of sqrunching down to look through the windshield or sitting up straight and looking over the windshield! — and the fact it was an electrical disaster. I think that Lucas Electric must use about 28 gauge wire in everything!
John Lucas, of Lucas Electric, Ltd, was not known as the Prince of Darkness for naught; it was said that Lucas Electric did not invent darkness, but could claim the title to sudden, unexpected darkness. There are more Lucas Electric jokes here, but my favorite is:
It’s not true that Joe Lucas, in 1947, tried to get Parliament to repeal Ohm’s Law. They withdrew their efforts when they met too much resistance.
I had a five day weekend off for Thanksgiving of 1985, but Mrs Pico had to work. I decided that I was gong to drive back to Kentucky from where we lived in Newport News, Virginia. And I decided to take the MGB, since Ken and my sisters would think it was a cool car. It was very warm for Thanksgiving week in southeastern Virginia, so when I set off –about 3:00 AM — though I was wearing jeans and a thick, white cable-knit sweater, I put the top down. Driving west on Interstate 64, on the far side of Richmond, it was cool enough that I had had enough, and stopped to put the top up. I was now wearing a denim jacket over my sweater as well.
“Baby” proved to be a really cool car: this was when the heater fan decided it didn’t want to work! The engine coolant was making it to the heater core, but there was no push from the fan. By the time I hit I-81, I stopped to search in the trunk, to see if there was anything in there to help me keep warm, and found a hospital bath blanket. These things are very thin, but they are much warmer than they look. And that was how I drove the rest of the way to Kentucky, with this bath blanket wrapped around my legs, like a little old lady in a wheelchair!
In those days, I-64 was not complete. You had to exit I-64 at Sam Black Church, West Virginia, and take old US 60. US 60, part of the Midland Trail, was a two-lane highway at the time, and you got back on I-64 in Charleston. That was a distance of 90 miles, but you couldn’t make it in less than 2½ hours, and even that took luck!
The first twenty or so miles on US 60 aren’t bad; a little bit rolling, not to curvy. But when you get to the town of Rainelle, you hit the first of three mountains that you have to cross. That was also where I hit snow on this trip!
The car had pretty wide tires for its size, and they had good tread, but the ting was so light that I was having a miserable time controlling the vehicle. I don’t remember how many hours it took me to make it through to Charleston.
Yeah, that was one cool car!
My grandparents lived in a little wide spot in the road near Madison, W.Va., and I-64 was not complete beyond Charleston my entire childhood. This meant that this child who was used to straight, flat roads had to spend an hour or two winding up and down mountains to get to Grandma’s house. My father, used to driving these roads, would whip around them at 50 mph, leaving his 3 green-faced children cowering in the backseat, just trying not to throw up. U.S. 119 was the road we took, and it was terrible. But Senator Byrd has used enough of my tax money to make it a perfectly straight, 4-lane highway now, one of the few pork barrel projects of which I approve.
And at least you did’t end up behind a big coal truck that couldn’t go more than 5 mph on the roads!
Oh, yes I did! That was why US 60 required so long to cover the ninety miles. It was tractor-trailer world, all the way through, and there were damned few places where you could pass.
As it happens, I used to own a 1978 MGB</i.
And how useful would it have been to you without any public roads?
Phoe: Conservatives don’t object to public roads, or the taxes to pay for them. We just don’t like paying taxes to give to people who won’t work.
My line of demarcation is pretty simple: if it’s a direct payment to an individual for something other than wages or a direct fee for services performed, it shouldn’t happen.
Deja vu all over again.
My first car was an Austin-Healy 100, BN-1 series. I bought it used and learned a lot about car maintanance. Then I got a new MG-A, the last of the rare Twin-Cam variants. It has been considered one of the worst cars ever built but it could never be considered anything as bad as a Trabant (an example of what socialism can to to German engineering) or one of those ugly Renaults that were sometimes called ‘Dr. Porsche’s Revenge.
After having a car that was drivable about half of the days I owned it, I went conservative and bought a new Corvette in spring of 1962.
I never went British again and have stuck with American, German, Italian, and Japanese…..
I wonder how ‘car guys’ will deal with the loathing of the internal combustion engines that seems to be a part of the new ‘Party Line’?
Some kids may be in for a rude awakening but we know what mugging does to Liberals.