It's one thing to see the Killer Bees MGB get PIT-Maneuvered at the 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza last weekend, and another to see that poor MG about to get slammed upside-down into the dirt.
Thanks to Chris Owens for the photograph!

Well, he wasn't hurt in the wreck, that is; his teammates (including 5-time DOTS honoree WhatWouldJesseDo) might end up inflicting some bodily harm due to unhappiness over the self-inflicted PIT Maneuver that takes place in the video below. Here you will see the view from the Team Stimulus Package Honda Civic as the incident unfolds.

Jeff comes from a family of wild-eyed racing fanatics, so he got started early. His first car was this '73 MGB, a project he started at the age of 13.

After hot-rodding it with the best of late-80s technology, he began his racing career via autocrossing.

It turned out that the young Jeff had quite a gift for driving. Little did he know that this gift would ultimately lead to years and years of life on the road as a pro racer, followed by a brilliant career as a sculptor.

Kept in the ol' racing scrapbook is this letter to the parents of the then-16-year-old MGB-drivin' hoon. Jeff claims that he really wasn't particularly wild as a street driver back then, and that the racket of his Supertrapp muffler made the "KILLR BE" seem to be going faster than it really was. When you're done reading the Concerned Parents letter, you might enjoy seeing some of the cars Jeff has owned over the years.

Folks,

This note is to let you know that your son is endangering others in this town by his reckless driving. At the very least, you should talk to him about it; before either he kills himself or maims some innocent bystander.

His "KILLR BE" license plate could be very appropriate for the way he drives. He has been seen skidding his car around corners, jack-rabbiting from traffic lights and, most dangerous, passing on the right (at about 60 mph) in a 35 mph zone where the road narrows from 2 lanes to 1.

His driving is down-right dangerous. It isn't cute.

This note is by no means to be vindictive. It is a plea to you to talk to him, threaten him if you need to, to protect the other drivers and pedestrians in our town. So far he has been lucky. If he keeps it up, his luck will run out. It will be on your heads and your hearts when he causes serious injury by this foolhardy behavior.

A concerned parent.

Fellow Jalopnik writer Ben Wojdyla was in the Bay Area to hoon some Audis, and so he dropped by Alameda to get some lunch and see a bit of the legendary ITRF for himself. I figured I'd show him the pink '60 Mercury Commuter, or maybe the '66 Lancia Fulvia Berlina GT, both of which live in my neighborhood, but then we happened upon this elderly British immigrant. I tried to play it cool: "Yeah, Ben, MG TDs are as common as Nissan Sentras around here! Move along, nothing to see here!"

Actually, I was pretty excited about this jaw-droppingly awesome DOTS find, which beats out the '60 Triumph TR3A and the '56 Morris Minor for the Oldest Street-Parked British Car In Alameda Down On The Street History. We hung around for a few minutes, hoping the owner would show up and enable us to get the full story on this car, but eventually gave up in order to grab some Caldo Tlalpeño at La Piñata.

The '53 MG TD came with a 54.4 horsepower pushrod four-cylinder engine (yes, that extra 4/10th of a horse was so important that MG included it in the power rating) and was priced at $1,945. That was about $1,500 less than The General's new sports car, the '53 Corvette, but 200 bucks cheaper (and orders of magnitude better-looking) than the Triumph Mayflower. Budget-minded car shoppers who wanted to go a little less sporty could buy the bargain-basement '53 Ford coupe- which probably outperformed the prewar-technology MG TD in just about every category save parallel parking ability- for just $1,734.

Not only was the A- which was such a frugal engine that it needed but three main bearings instead of the five that squander-prone fools prefer for their four-bangers- built from 1954 through 2000 and installed in millions of Minis, Midgets, Minors and the like, it served as the basis for many of Nissan's engines of the 1950s and 1960s. Available in displacements from 803cc all the way up to 1,275cc, the A put postwar Britain- which was still under food rationing well into the 1950s- on wheels and kept it there into the new millenium, winning plenty of racing glory along the way.
[Wikipedia]

Yes, the Historischer Autofriedhof Gürbetal collection, which comprises the largest concentration of pancreas-meltingly cool project cars ever assembled in one place, will go under the auctioneer's gavel on September 19th. Naturally, I'll be doing some furious lobbying to get the Gawker Overlords to ship me over there to buy every Jalopnik employee his own Official Jalopnik Staff Car (I'm sort of torn between one of the Lancia Flaminias and the Sunbeam Rapier for myself). There's plenty of Detroit iron, too, including 13 Plymouth Valiants and 10 Chevy Impalas. You can get the complete PDF list of the vehicles here; we'll share some of the highlights:
• 9 1947-52 Citroën 11s
• 13 Alfa Romeo Giuliettas
• 6 Borgward Isabellas
• 5 Chevy IIs
• 14 Morris Minors
• 23 Opel Olympias
• 6 Studebaker Champions
You get the idea. Go here for the overview, here for some more. Thanks to OneWheelDrive for the tip!

Just click on any of the thumbnails below to jump to the original post about that car.

1937 Beardmore	1953 Citroën	1956 Morris	1959 Morris
1960 Peugeot	1960 Triumph	1961 Morris	1963 Land Rover
1965 Austin	1965 Alfa Romeo	1966 Jaguar	1966 Lancia
1966 Volvo	1969 MG	1969 Volvo	1969 Volvo
1969 Citroën	1970 Volvo	1971 Volvo	1971 MG
1972 Triumph	1972 Steyr	1973 Volvo	1973 MG
1974 Jensen-Healey	1975 Citroën	1975 MG	1977 Fiat
1977 Volvo	1978 Jaguar	1978 Saab	1980 Volvo
1981 Fiat	1982 Fiat	1984 Jaguar	1985 Alfa Romeo
1985 Saab	1985 Peugeot	1986 Jaguar	1988 Renault
1988 Peugeot	1989 Ferrari	1989 Alfa Romeo	1991 Peugeot
1991 Alfa Romeo	1991 Rolls-Royce

If you prefer being a nitpicker to being merely observant, you might then point out that the British Leyland name existed only from 1968 to 1986, and thus several of these ads fall outside those boundaries as well. But here at Jalopnik, we defy categorization of obscure European machinery!

When you're done here, you might check out our favorite VW ads, then go right on with the Datsun, Toyota, Mustang, Renault, General Motors, and Chevrolet ads.

1972 Triumph TR6 (USA)	1981 Austin Rover (UK)	1966 Austin Mini (Australia)
1975 Triumph Spitfire (USA)	1970 Hillman Hunter (Australia)	1975 Triumph, MG (USA)
1980 Austin Metro (UK)	1977 Leyland Princess (Germany)	1976 Triumph TR7 (USA)
1973 Triumph (UK)	1976 Leyland Princess (UK)	1974 Triumph Spitfire (USA)
1981 Triumph Acclaim (UK)	2003 MG ZR (Spain)	1977 British Leyland (UK)	1970 Simca 1000 (Spain)

Yesterday's zombie slayer Landcruiser woke the Crack Pipe dead to the tune of 83 brain-splattering percent. Today, we're going to be looking at a contender from a lifeless, but ambulatory maker, one that was still trying to eke out the coolness- like a 20-year old who is still trolling the high school.

Morris Garages was founded in 1910. In the 1920s they began producing MG cars- light, quick, saloons and roadsters that were praised as being some of the finest handling cars of the time. For the next sixty years, MG continued this tradition, until time and British Leyland caught up with them.

The A replacing B was originally intended for a 5 year model run. Budgetary and dysfunctional management issues turned that into an 18 year slog, with the last six or eight being particularly embarrassing for the little car. The Bs were always fun, good-handling little cars, but by the mid-seventies they were still rocking 50s technology, and all attempts to bring them into compliance with U.S. safety and emissions standards only served to make them less relaibale and more ungainly. The massive black rubber bumpers overwhelmed the design, and after a couple of years of living in smog-filled environs they turned into eraser-textured marks-a-lots. Bumper and headlamp height regulations required MG to raise the car 1.5 inches, compromising the handling and making them look like an unhappy dog getting a bath. Sturdy and reliable, the 1,798 cc cast iron four originally pumped out a healthy 98 bhp, making the car good for 100 mph+ cruising. Due to emissions compliance, the double inch-and-a-quarter SUs were replaced by a single Zenith Stromberg 175CD5T, like most everything arriving to the U.S. from Great Britain. This, along with an air pump, catalytic convertor and lowered compression took the B to a wheezy, but still freeway-capable 68 bhp. Fun now came with a lowercase 'f'.

Today, we have a survivor from that era, a '76 MGB convertible with a claimed 22,xxx miles on it. We don't know if that means it was only ever driven by a porn star, or if the odometer broke some time ago. Knowing the durability of the Leyland cars, the latter is more likely. This was the first year that overdrive came standard, so this car should be so equipped, which makes highway driving a lot more enjoyable for both car and driver.

Despite the inequities suffered upon the B in its twilight years, they still can be fun cars to drive, as long as you know, and are respectful of, the limitations. As an example of that fun, here's a couple of prideful owners showing off their cars- and in the first instance, of how to properly wear a backwards cap:

Remax:

Angeles Crest Highway:

See, doesn't that look like fun? And that could be you, in your backwards cap, for only $5,000. Five grand- what else could you buy for so little that would offer such classic top-down fun? But, is that too much for a nice two seat droptop with performance and handling that would be shamed by a Kia Rio? Or is that a price that makes you want to MG-B happy, and don't worry?

You decide!

Scranton Craigslist or go here if the ad disappears. Hat tip to docrice!

This is our third MGB, after this '71 MGB-GT and this '73 MGB (some might say that this super-rare '69 MGC-GT counts as an MGB as well).

The "black bumper" MGs don't get much affection from the purists, partly because of the ugly 5 MPH crash bumpers, partly because of the DOT-mandated tall ride height, partly because of the increasingly horrible British Leyland build quality, but mostly because of the 62.5-horsepower engine. Yes, this car was so miserably underpowered that MG actually claimed a half-horsepower in the rating. However, since this one is a '75, it's exempt from California's emission laws. That means its owner is free to add go-fast goodies to his or her heart's content.

The Sacramento-to-Tahoe Snowball is open to pre-1974 sports and touring cars (the rules specifically prohibit forklifts and steamrollers) and offers participants the joy of climbing the Sierra Nevada mountains on funky back roads during snow season. Much Jalopnik-approved machinery took part, including at least one Opel GT, the usual cast of beater seasoned Alfa Romeos, some MGs, etc.






Along the way, the rallyers passed the kind of mountain junkyard we dream about. Citroëns were just part of the goodness.

The BARC folks have been going to Sebring since the 1950s, and their site features galleries of photographs from 1955 through 1965. If you like MGs, Porsches, Ferraris, Maseratis, Cobras, the works, be sure to check it out. Thanks to Scroggzilla for the tip!
[BARC]

In order to keep the Gawker Server Hamsters alive, we've had to break the ÜG up into three sections: one for the American machines, one for the European steel, and one for the Japanese vehicles. Just click on the image below to jump to the section you want; to see the order in which the racers finished (along with best lap times), head over to the Top 95 LeMons Of The Gator-O-Rama. If that doesn't satisfy your thirst for citrus-flavored racin' action, there's always the Arse Freeze-A-Palooza LeMons '08 Über Gallery, the LeMons Yeehaw It's Texas '08 Über Gallery, LeMons Detroit-ish '08 Über Gallery, LeMons New England '08 Über Gallery, LeMons South '08 Über Gallery, LeMons San Francisco '08 Über Gallery, LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza '07 Über Gallery, and the LeMons San Francisco '07 Über Gallery.

I had plenty of help from volunteer photographers at the race, including Myke Toman, Nick Pon, Zerin Dube and Speed:Sport:Life, Anna C of Bikini Racer, the Norwegian Slaabs, Saabs Gone Wild, Prison Break Racing, Team Beermer, LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman, Jackson Williams, and others whose names have slipped through the cracks in my not-so-airtight organizational system.



The Americans




The Yurpeans




The Rising Sun

And here's a bonus gallery of assorted action photos from the race:

While there was only one European machine in the Gator-O-Rama top 10, the Opular Dependence Team Israel Opel GT grabbed the prestigious Organizer's Choice trophy for the Continent. Not only that, the Saabs avoided throwing even a single connecting rod this time out, which should be cause for rejoicing in the streets of Stockholm
.
Thanks to Myke Toman, Nick Pon, Zerin Dube and Speed:Sport:Life, Anna C of Bikini Racer, the Norwegian Slaabs, Saabs Gone Wild, Prison Break Racing, Team Beermer, LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman, Jackson Williams, and others for their fine photographs.

And that Escort is just one of many great British race cars that VR photographed at last summer's B.C. Historics. Lotus, Sunbeam, Austin-Healey, and MG are all represented, and we get a couple of race Volvos as an added bonus! I've been falling behind on my duty to share VR's great racing photographs, so expect more of this sort of thing in the near future.

Clearly, PNP is taking a cue from the classic National Lampoon cover here, and what vehicle could be cuter than a chrome-bumper MGB-GT? It's like a friendly little puppy, begging you to save it from death! A friendly puppy that spends most of its time at the vet and leaks all over the house, that is, but just look at it!



Whoever is writing Pick-N-Pull's Craigslist ads has a good sense of humor. We see the two possible outcomes to the "you don't buy the car" scenario. One shows the parking spot- complete with oil stain- in which the MG once sat prior to its new owner hauling it away; the other shows The Crusher working up a good appetite with a Volvo wagon entree, with the heavy implication being that the MG will be dessert. Lines like "Buy this car and you will know what you will be doing for many months to come" and "Legendary Lucas Reliability" imply that the writer has at least a passing acquaintance with British Leyland products. Here's a giant screen shot of the original ad, just in case someone snaps up that super-bargain and the ad gets pulled. Thanks to Casadelshawn for the tip!



[Craigslist San Francisco]

Now that the rain has finally stopped, I can get down to making the Sprite roadworthy; such is Project Car Hell when you don't have a garage. One of the showstoppers- in addition to the lack of brake function and any semblance of a wiring harness- has been the terrible steering wheel that came with the car. Any torque on the wheel makes the spokes pull out of the tape, and I don't trust JB Weld to repair it properly. While I'm sure an Austin-Healey fanatic would fire the wheel straight to a wizened old steering-wheel restorer back in England, I'd rather eat a bushel of Circus Peanuts than spend £400 on the correct wheel. Supposedly you can get Mountney hub adapters to get an aftermarket wheel on a Sprite, but that's still going to set me back close to 100 clams, or bones, or whatever you call them. No, my steering wheel budget is more like 15 bucks!


There's no way in hell that any wheel out of Detroit is going to fit my car, and the all-metric German and Japanese wheels weren't going to bolt on either. Got to be British! Casadelshawn of the Faster Farms Belvedere spotted a chrome-bumper Midget (identical to the Sprite) in a junkyard in Sacramento while I was off covering the Gator-O-Rama, but the little MG had been picked clean by the time I got back to Alameda and could make the 90-mile trek to the state capitol. Let's see, what's the only British Leyland product that's plentiful in the cheap self-service junkyards around here? That's right: the Jaguar XJ! My first target was this Series 1 XJ-6's wheel. Sadly, the splined steering shaft on this car was bigger than the one on the Sprite.


But what's this a few cars down in the same yard? Why, it's a 1974 XJ12, which (according to some very headache-inducing online research) used a different wheel than its downscale six-banger sibling. Sure enough, the V12 Jag steering wheel is a direct replacement for the little Sprite's, right down to the rim diameter! The horn button doesn't quite work- a bit of corrosion in the contacts, which didn't really come as a surprise- but I'll sort that out later. Next step: a wiring harness that allows me to fire up the engine without twisting wires together!

Last time we had such a poll, I included too many choices and it was just too damn much work. This time it will be much simpler, with just two teams. The whole deal is pretty easy: you guess how many total laps you think each of the two teams will finish and put those numbers in a comment for the world to see. Then, a long time after the race, I'll get around to calculating who was closest overall, and that person will win some official LeMons gear. Maybe you'll get a baseball cap, or a couple shirts, or whatever didn't sell at the race the LeMons staff feel is best for Jalopnik readers. The overall race winner is likely to do about 400 laps, so use that as your yardstick. My personal predictions are 279 laps for the MG, 135 for the Opel, primarily because the Opel sat in a Texas field for many years and didn't get a thorough fuel tank flushing, while the MG has had its wiring completely de-Lucasized. OK, now it's your turn! You've already seen a fair number of Opular Dependence Team Israel photos, so here are some shots of the proud British Leyland entry. Check in later, as I'll do my best to provide live race updates.

First, we should all thank Scroggzilla for unearthing these videos of a vintage Castrol documentary for us (and Targa-Florio.net for providing the photograph above). The Targa Florio was an endurance race held in the mountains of Sicily; starting in 1906, it was finally discontinued in 1977 for safety reasons. Yes, even by the insanely loose (and relatively lawsuit-free) standards of European road racing, the Targa Florio was considered too dangerous to continue. We've got the whole lineup of worship-deserving machinery here, including MGs, Austin-Healeys, Alfas, Porsches, and- of course- Ferraris.

That's what happened to Bill, California Melee and 24 Hours Of LeMons veteran (and housemate of TheEastBayKid), a couple weeks back. You see, Bill lives in the Laurel District of Oakland, a pleasant neighborhood in a city that gets a mostly undeserved bad rap from the rest of the country; however, much as I (a former Oakland resident) love the place- it is true that it's a tough town for cars. The OPD deals with matters more pressing than traffic-law enforcement, and happy hour tends to be a 24/7 affair for many Oaktown drivers. You're rolling the dice every time you park your car on the street, and this time the dice came up snake-eyes for Bill's '69 MGB-GT. Your classic hit-and-run wreck, with the MG mashed into a tree and the only clue left behind by the perp (probably behind the wheel of a late-70s Pontiac Bonneville) a broken Olde English 800 40-dog, no doubt dropped out the driver's window at the moment of impact. Bill hasn't decided whether he wants to let sentimental value trump rational thought and try to fix the car in a massive sheetmetal weld-a-thon, or just pull all the snazzy aftermarket performance bits off it and start over with another MGB. Check out Bill's blog to get the whole story.
[Bill's Buckets]