Sometimes a car becomes more than 4 wheels that get you from A to B, its not usually the best car or the fastest car. Its the one with quirks and character that you have to learn to love or spend more time with than your family or friends, every morning coaxing and willing it back to life. For me that was a little grey MG.
It all started with myself, a Ring veteran and a plan to take some colleagues on a trip to the Ring, none had ever been before but all were car fans of varying levels. As with most ring virgins they had dreams of renting a Porsche or some kind of 500+hp monster to wow the world with their driving prowess and obvious sub 8 lap times.
As two wizened old fools who had seen this many times over the years we managed convince them that using an old barge would be cheaper but still so much fun!
A few days later an MG ZR160 popped up for £500, I couldn't believe it. I just assumed it would be too good to be true, but no guts no glory and went for it. After the test drive I just couldn't keep the smile off my face as i could not believe they just wanted £500 for it, there must be something wrong with it I thought, but it came home with me anyway and i was grinning every mile of journey.
After a good wash, polish and some obligatory racing strips added to the roof we were ready to go!
The car survived a long weekend at the Ring with 4 novices and 2 old fools taking it far beyond what a car of that age and mileage should be doing including a good few sessions on the GP track. But it just didn't skip a beat. We did notice a funny rattle at one point but that was just the shards of an aged hose giving up and throwing itself into the air filter which thankfully did its job!
When we got back I just couldn't get rid of the car, it was just such a pleasure to drive and made such a great noise it just became my track car and also my daily drive. I just couldn't get enough of it. After this it did several trips to the Ring and numerous UK track days with only a the odd bit of oil and a few sets of discs and pads to keep it going.
It was a great car to track, you always managed to surprise more than a few people who earlier in the day had been looking down their noses at the guy who had brought "Just and Rover" to a track day.
But sadly all things must end, and a few years later disaster happened. On its final trip to the Ring on a very wet day on Tyres that where not appropriate for the weather (learnt this lesson the hard way) we lost the car going through Kesselchen and caused a lot of damage to the front of the car. Though it came off the track under its own steam, on further inspection we found broken track rods, broken suspension and various other broken parts.
It was late in the season and many cold hours were spent getting the car drivable so we could get it home but the car sadly never left Germany, but it will always be remembered for many years and laps of fun.
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