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Background to work undertaken:
As a result of a clash of BGT versus French Clio during my trip to Le Mans in 2003, the bodywork was the most recent thing to be done on the car prior to the supercharger and seats.
When I bought it, there was a slight bubbling of the nearside rear wing. This had got gradually worse, most probably because, unlike the PO, I do not have a garage to put the car in and it had to sit outside in all weathers! I had been meaning to do something about it, but was paranoid about getting the paint match right - my paranoia stopped me from doing anything with it at all and by the Summer of 2003 the bubbling had extended to the whole of the nearside rear winglet and was also starting on the offside. Also there was a tiny bubble in the bonnet paint, which I stupidly popped and that got rapidly worse, too. Prior to this, the car had undergone a full respray around 1990 in its original colour of Mallard Green and it had weathered very well - still shining up well after a polish.
As mentioned above, a young French learner driver clouted me when in France in 2003, which resulted in a rather large insurance claim, to include basically the entire right hand side of the car. Although I did not avoid the girl entirely, I managed to swerve enough to avoid being T-boned completely and for this I am grateful, as it would surely have ended in the car being disabled and a write-off. Luckily the majority of the blow was taken in the panel immediately behind the offside front wheel arch and luckily (by the grace of 6 inches in each direction) did not reach any of the inner structural panels although all of the outer panels including the outer sill and rear wing were goosed as the BGT pivoted about its impact as we went broadside - I still have the 1.2L badge from the Clio that embedded itself in the rear wing!!
I have some lighter pictures, but I need to scan them in. You can just see here that the front and rear wings plus bottom leading edge corner of the door were damaged.
The worst of the damage! Luckily the impact was taken by the splash panel. 6 inches either way would have had either the bulkhead, sill or front suspension!
This is where the 1.2L badge of the Clio embedded! I have it still as a trophy!
After much searching post accident, I chose to go with the MGOC Workshop for the repairs. The list was to include, new front wing, new front drivers door, repairs to rear wing and door pillar and then a respray. At the same time I added repairs to the bubbling rear wing, new bonnet (which MGOC did me a good deal on!) and also had the hole in the roof welded up...! I had removed the aerial sometime previously and filled the void with a grommet, giving the car a big zit on it's roof - ewww!
Upon collecting the car MGOC had done a pretty good job and because there were only going to be about 2 panels not sprayed off of the whole car, had actually undertaken a full 2-pack respray on my behalf... the result?? See below! Big grin!
The marks on the valence are light marks honest!
Pictures taken near where the photos were taken for the magazine feature (totalMG - November 2004)
Intentions:
I have always loved the look of the MGB racers and dreamed of altering my car's exterior to emulate these. When the car was damaged in France, it finally gave me the excuse I needed to effect some changes to the car's look. I had already bought some new seats for the interior and these were to form part of the look.
When the car was being repaired, I also had MGOC spray a Sebring rear valence and a special tuning front valence. I didn't use the Sebring front valence because I wanted to fit BIG spot lights to the front of the car and the flush fit of the Sebring valence would have meant they stuck out too far. The ST version was recessed lightly for a better fit.
I forgot to take pictures of the fitting of the rear valence, but you will have seen it in the pictures and below.
I have yet to fit the spotlights because I have had more pressing things to do. I aim to get these fitted this year.
A few stickers will finish the look off!
Update: November 2005 by Martin Williamson
During MGOC 80th Silverstone, I caught up with a fellow club member who had a good recessed grille for sale, so this was fitted in November and has improved the car's appearance somewhat. The original grille suffered during the car's sojourn in Bath and sported numerous dents from on-street parking - a downside to the Sebring look! I had picked up a modern MG badge for £1 at an auto-jumble, and fitted this with a good adhesive, and unbeknownst to me, this is something Phil had planned to do anyway!
Copyright Phil Earl 2005