MGA – Abingdon’s prettiest car?

I own this 1961 MGA. This is an Australian-built pushrod 1600, matching numbers car. It came out of the Sydney factory sporting the British Racing Green paint that was denied to the US and UK market.

The MGA 1600 is perfectly capable of keeping up with modern traffic, being no slower than many ordinary modern cars. Its 1588 cc motor produces 80 bhp. While this may seem modest, it must be remembered that the MGA weighs just 902 kg. The MGA 1600 is capable of reaching 100 km/h from rest in under 14 seconds. Hence, acceleration is fine and my car cruises very happily at 100 km/h. The car has superb rack and pinion steering and disc brakes on the front. Neither are assisted, of course. This ensures maximum feel is provided by both. The steering is not heavy – the large wheel provides plenty of leverage. However, the unassisted disc brakes require a firm shove of the pedal compared to the highly servoed brakes of modern cars.

Many owners have uprated their MGAs.  Transplanted 1800 cc MGB motors are common. Both are BMC B-Series motors and are pretty much indistinguishable from each other from the outside. Similarly, the installation of the 1620 cc version of B-Series motors from various Wolseley, Riley and Morris models is not unusual either. The latter bring the car very close to MGA Mk11 specification and mean the car is capable of 100 mph . These MK11s, the last of the MGAs, running from 1961 to 1962, had a 1622 cc motor, an inset grille, with vertical bars (“pre-crashed” in the words of one contemporary observer). The Mk11 also sported horizontally-mounted rear lights from a Mini. While styling is always subjective, I think the Mk11 styling is a little more pure.

The first model of MGA, the 1500 (actually 1489 cc) has the tidiest styling of them all, with 72 bhp  (except for very early cars which had 68 bhp), no separate indicators at the rear and small clear sidelights at the front. However, with the smallest motor and drums all round, the 1500 is not quite as relaxed to drive in modern traffic as the later, more powerful, better braked versions.

MGAs are very stylish. Driving one results in people photographing you from passing cars and waving. When you stop, people come and ask about the car and photograph it. Children politely ask to sit in it. I am yet to park my car in the city without a young woman stopping to say it is “a beautiful car”. Sitting in traffic, I have had offers to buy the MG from young men in four wheel drives. One middle-aged couple, seeing that I was about to leave my parking spot in the MGA, jumped out of their car to rush and stand in my way so that they could admire the MG and ask me about it.

While perfectly presentable, my MGA is certainly no concourse contender. Its smiling driver is a balding man in his forties. It is, without doubt, the car’s beautiful styling that attracts all this attention – not the driver.

People sometimes say that the MGA is a sort of mini Austin Healey. That is pretty much how the car was positioned in the market during the late 1950s and early 1960s. There was a clear pecking order. Setting aside for a moment Triumphs and other contenders (including imported cars) the English sportscar market started with the MGA. Those with more money bought an Austin Healey and those with even more to spend, bought a Jaguar XK. Above that, those few with really considerable means bought an Aston Martin. Over time, the pecking order has remained the same and the price differential has grown. Partly for this reason, I contend that the MGA is the bargain of the lot. Some argue the Austin Healey is more attractively styled that its smaller sister, the MGA. Certainly, Austin Healey stylist Gerry Croker did a great job with Big Healey. The continued manufacture of modern reproductions indicates his design is still admired. However, I prefer the MGA. The latter has a lower cut door and more flared rear guards than the Austin Healey. Both give the MG a more shapely, less slab-sided appearance than the Big Healey. The cars share 15 inch wheels (usually wires). These look slightly larger and more dynamic on the smaller-bodied MGA. To my eye, the curvy MGA is closer in styling to the AC Ace (forerunner of the butch-looking Cobra and its thousands of replicas) than it is to the Big Healeys that were made, along with the “A” at the MG’s Abingdon factory.

Compared to many contemporary and current vehicles, the MGA is a small car. Its predecessors, the MG T-types (TA, TB, TC, TD and TF) were all marketed as MG “Midgets”. However, like the older MG T-types and the more recent MGBs and MGFs, there is plenty of length in the car for long legs. On the other hand, as with all MG roadsters, it can be a bit of squeeze to get in and out of an MGA. The large steering wheel is (with a spanner) adjustable for reach, but I have to have it pretty much in my lap if I am to use my legs beyond it. The cabin is wide enough to sit two comfortably. The main cost of the MGA’s compact design is a lack of storage space. The spare wheel takes up much of the small boot. By the time a jack and some tools are stowed in there too, things get pretty tight.

For this reason, many MGAs are fitted with a chrome luggage rack. We bought a very nice large period leather suitcase on eBay for $5 and that works perfectly well for longer journeys.  However, the car is much harder to load up for a long trip than an MGTD, for example.

The doors of an MGA have large door pockets  –  shelves really – that are capable of holding wallets, phones, tools and much else besides. Up inside the door is a cable that is the only way of opening the doors. The MGA roadster has no external door handle – to aid streamlining. The pretty MGA coupe has an elegant chrome external handle.

The coupe, which looks a little like a small Jaguar XK, has a higher top speed than the roadster, due to its improved streamlining, but as a heavier car, it is slower to accelerate than the lighter roadster. The cream of the MGA crop is the twin-cam. This rare beast sports a lovely looking twin cam version of the B-Series motor and disc brakes on all four wheels.  The engines were troublesome when released and the engine bay, tight enough with a pushrod car, is extremely hard to access properly in a twin-cam.  Output was 108 bhp at 6700 rpm in the high-compression (9.9:1) version and 100 bhp in the low-compression (8.3:1) version that was introduced to improve reliability. The engine block was cast iron, but the crossflow eight-port cylinder head was of aluminium alloy. Despite the alloy head, the extra weight of the engine, and a relocated steering rack, mean that the lighter, more balanced, pushrod cars are said to handle slightly better. Both are, nonetheless, probably the sweetest handling English cars of the period. The twin-cam’s reliability issues have now been conquered. The lowered compression ratio and the improved quality of modern (as well as a more consistent mixture from reduced carby vibration) means that burnt pistons are a thing of the past. Where reasonable pushrod cars start at around $25,000 and run up to about $45,000 for the very, very best examples, the twin-cams start around $55,000. With either engine, coupes are about twenty to thirty percent less than their roadster equivalents.

Keeping an MGA happy is easy and affordable. Parts are cheap and readily available from Moss and others. Have a look at eBay to see how cheap parts are. The cars are simple and tough. The main trap is rust. The sills are the key risk area. Check carefully, very carefully. If you have, or take on, a rusty one, high quality panel and chassis repair pieces can be bought from Kilmartin Automotive Sheetmetal in Ballarat, about an hour from Melbourne.