I COULDN'T help but smile when one my favourite cars - my 1972 MGB GT - got some fan mail earlier today.
The car's previous owners sent an email to The Champion office to let me know they regularly read the updates on a thoroughly traditional and very British sports car I've been proud to own for the last 18 months, and it's for them that I include a video of the car in action.
An extract from their email reads:
Mr Simister,
You will be surprised, and I hope, pleased to learn that we follow your reports of "our" MGB and have compiled an archive simply because we are delighted that you gain so much pleasure from the car.I could not have wished for a better outcome; passing the car to someone who is really thrilled to own it.
Our friends look out for it and report "sightings". The previous owner, Alison, thinks we are mad...........but then she did not have the car as part of the family for 20 years!!
To which I've replied...
Thanks for your kind email and hope you had a good Christmas and an enjoyable New Year.
I'm delighted that you're still following the progress on the MGB. I am, as I'm sure you've probably gathered, absolutely smitten with it. Since its return to the road it's been on numerous runs into the West Lancashire countryside and was an entrant into the Ormskirk MotorFest last August; at the moment it's being treated to a new exhaust, fuel tank and stereo system, but when it comes out of winter hibernation one of my aims is to take it on the official MGB 50th anniversary run in Gaydon this April.
I'll have a look for a back copy of the magazine for you but in the meantime I'm happy to enclose a copy of the video, which I filmed a few weeks ago (before I fitted the new exhaust, incidentally). The video can be seen here:
The MGB will be back on the road once the sun comes out again, so I'm sure your friends will report plenty more sightings in the coming weeks!
More updates on Bridget, as I call her, to follow soon...