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#121274 - 10/09/03 01:07 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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A Grant Wood painting.
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It was my understanding the MG stands for Morgan's Garage. The two seater was made about 1974, I think. I did not know they could get such a large engine in such a small car.
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#121276 - 10/09/03 04:32 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Diamond Poster
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A Grant Wood painting.
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Did you research the car? I figured it has to top a buck and a half and get there in a hurry.
What size displacement? Who made the engine?
The Brits have put V8s in Austin Martins, Rolls Royces, Jags and there has to be a Rover. All of these cars have some size to them. Even the Austin Martin is a "full size" sports car. This MGBGT is nuts. I have got to drive one!
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#121278 - 10/09/03 04:44 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Anonymous
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#121279 - 10/09/03 04:56 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Diamond Poster
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Between Here and There
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Apparently these cars have a sort of following among some people. I did find one which is a MGB V8 Roaster that answers a few of your questions. http://www.mgcars.org.uk/v8_conversions/rogv8.htmlThey also have several other MG's at www.supercars.net And those Aston Martins are some really nice vehicles and very, very pricey.. The Aston Martin Vanquish has got to be one of my dream cars 
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#121280 - 10/09/03 06:04 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Diamond Poster
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Posts: 1,357
A Grant Wood painting.
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Based on the information provided, it looks as though this little gem tops out at about 140. I can not do the conversion for displacement (metric being but a fad in my youth). Thank you for the research. I did not find one for sale yet but it would just be another dream. With reguard to the Austin Martin, it is my understanding that it is the maker to the royalty. Many a family member has been seen touring around in a "Princess". This must have been the "driving" reason behind the DB5 being used as the first Bond car. Still hand made, Austin Martin will always be cooler than the BMW. (As the early Bonds were cooler than Pierce - my opinion.) 
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#121281 - 10/09/03 09:06 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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I am pretty sure that MG came from Morris Garage, not Morgan Garage. The Morgan was made by another company.
For you trivia buffs, the Morgan's frame was made out of wood.
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#121282 - 10/09/03 09:52 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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A Grant Wood painting.
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You may be right but didn't they also make the Morris Minor car that was actually raced indoors? My dad owned an MGTD when I was born and had to sell it because it was not a family car. (I have always felt guilty for that.)
He pit crewed for a guy that used to race MGP's in the mountains near Colarado Springs. I understand that that MGP was supercharged.
Was the V8 engine in the MGBGT made by Rover?
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#121283 - 10/10/03 05:56 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Quote:
..... Was the V8 engine in the MGBGT made by Rover?
Yes it was, and one of the most widely used engines it was too.
It, so I understand, first hit the draftsman's board in the early 50's as a Buick small-block V8. Buick failed to make the design work, and eventaully sold the design to Rover cars. They used the engine in existing sedan and coupe models as a 3.5 liter V8, before deciding that it was what they were looking for to power their then new concept - the RangeRover. From there it was a short step to also sticking it in the slab-sided (later "Defender") Landrover (long and short wheelbase models), and also to power the "101" Landrover, a military-only forward control (cab over the engine) model. Only 2,600 were built, the last in 1976, though de-mobed vehicles were re-skinned and used as the all-purpose cab and cop-car vehicles in the Sylvester Stallone movie "Judge Dread".
It got used for the MGB, though only about 2,000 V8 models were factory made before the MG brand was mothballed in 1980, but the V8 has been a popular conversion for MG owners.
Also at the end of the 1970's the TR7 was designed to take the Rover V8, though like the MG V8, few were ever made. I always thought that the V8 TR7 was supposed to be badged as a TR8, but at least a few TR7s got a V8 engine too, and like the MG it is supposedly an even conversion (if you have a TR7 that hasn't rusted away!)
V8 engines were also sold to TVR, a British sports car manufacturer, to power several of their cars from the 1980's if not earlier. TVR also made modified versions of the 3.5 liter, boring it out to 3.9, and 4.2 liter capacities, and re-cranking it to produce a 5.0 liter engine too.
In the late 1970's Landrover tried to create a diesel version of the engine, using the project code name "Iceberg". The project failed.
Rover V8s were also sold to several other British car builders in the 1980s and 1990s, Westfield and Marcos are just two that spring to mind.
In the early 1980's when "Group B" rally car designs were getting out of hand the then owners of Rover cars took the V8 engine, cut two cylinders off it to make a V6 which used to power the Metro 6R4 four wheel drive race-rocket. Group B cars were soon outlawed - on the grounds that doing 140mph plus down a dirt track lined with trees was probably more excitment than the sport could cope with.
In the late 1980's, when the cult of the supercar was in the ascendency, Jaguar designed the XJ220 concept car that had a projected top speed of 220mph, but they didn't have deep enough pockets to build the V12 engine the car needed, so they took the existing V6 version of the engine developed for the 6R4 dirt-track rally car, and redesigned it to power the XJ220 to a top speed of (only) 212mph.
When Landrover unveiled the Discovery the V8, needless to say, was one of the engine options.
In the early 1990's Rover Group decided to resurrect the MG name, and made a short production run, again about 2,000 cars, of the old MGB car with slightly restyled, somewhat "pumped-up" looking, body and stuck the faithful old V8 engine it (I'm not sure if it was the 3.5 or 3.9 liter version).
Meanwhile Landrover took the V8 engine and followed the amateur engineers, and TVR's engineers too, and bored the engine out to 3.9 liters for the modernized RangeRover, and later the Discovery and Defender.
I think that the end of the line (for new engines at least) came when BMW took over Rover Group, and I believe that the then current 4.2 liter evolution of the V8 used in the RangeRover, and 3.9 liter engine in the Discovery was discontinue, but I am not certain about that. Mayb the design still lives on?
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#121285 - 10/10/03 06:01 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Platinum Poster
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Down South, USA
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Quote:
I am pretty sure that MG came from Morris Garage, not Morgan Garage. The Morgan was made by another company.
For you trivia buffs, the Morgan's frame was made out of wood.
They are still in business, in Malvern, England, and still make cars on ash frames - not to be confued with the chassis. The frame supports the bodywork, giving it shape and rigidity, and is mounted on a steel chassis.
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#121286 - 10/10/03 06:34 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Diamond Poster
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A Grant Wood painting.
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Where did the Morris Minor come from?
Where does the Saab Sonnet fit into the world of ralley cars? Have you ever seen one? I grew up in the land of Saabs. The Sonnet is not pretty, but kind interesting in a fighter plane sort of way. (Saab's flight division had a lot of influence on the Sonnet)
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#121287 - 10/10/03 06:41 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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A Grant Wood painting.
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By the way. This thread is getting to be quite fun.
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#121288 - 10/10/03 07:11 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Down South, USA
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Quote:
Where did the Morris Minor come from? ....
It was British, a product of Morris Cars, which later became, in turn, Austin Morris, Leyland Cars, Austin Rover, Rover Cars, and now MG Cars. Along the way huge numbers of other names got swept up and lost - Triumph, Healey, Cambridge to name but three.
I think that the Morris Minor was first built in the 1950's, and lasted until around 1973. It was never exactly cutting edge, but the original ones had side-valve engines. A popular variant was the Morris Traveller, a station wagen with an exposed wooden frame (real wood, not one of those plastic-wood adorned American-style station wagens, ... BTW what possessed Chrysler to make a PT Cruiser with wood effect panels?  ). There was also a pick-up version, and a small panel van too.
When the model came to an end, the mechanical design was substantially carried over to the Morris Marina, a pigs breakfast of a car if there ever was. Designed to make the best of a very limited design budget by a company that was already owned by the British government and was all but insolvent (as was the British government at that time!  .... and don't mention the IMF bail-out.  ). The Morris Marina, sedan, coupe and station wagon versions stayed in production until 1979, when the design was warmed-over, squared off in a vaguely 2002 Explorer kind of way, the coupe model dropped, and it was rebadged as an Morris Ital. Which brings us in a round-a-bout way to the awful first car that I ever owned (I referred to, but did not name, in the "first cars" thread) which was a 1981 Morris Ital station wagon with a 1300cc engine. 
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#121289 - 10/10/03 07:15 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Quote:
.... Where does the Saab Sonnet fit into the world of ralley cars? Have you ever seen one? ....
Not sure, and no. I guess that it was part of Saab's hey-day of rally cars.
They made a competitive rally car in the early 70's - the Saab 96 that had a Ford V4 engine, a little primitive, but light, and compact, and made a successful rally car. It was first made in 1966, and continued until 1979, but it was outdated as a rally car by then, over taken by the more modern, and better balanced, Ford Escort.
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#121290 - 10/10/03 08:13 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Diamond Poster
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A Grant Wood painting.
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Hey, I loved my '74 Volvo 264E. Second Series, 6 cyl, 4 door, EFI. Not a car for a kid but I was (am) kind of strange. I loved the look of the TR6, hated the look of the TR7, but would have killed for the Saab Sonnet. The Sonnet had an almost Z car look to it and was made out of fiberglass. The hood scoop and recessed grill made it look shark-like in an A-10 sort of way. 4 cyl but I understand some with larger Ford (V8) power plants were made. Front wheel drive and very light. Some of them made apprearances in Minnesota with spikes for ice racing. These cars are very reasonably priced right now and I should buy one. The only downside is that they are too small for me to sleep in.
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#121292 - 10/10/03 08:52 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Diamond Poster
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A Grant Wood painting.
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I know a guy that managed to put a 350 in one but by the time he was finished it was not a Sonnet anymore.
Found one for sale on-line a while back. I need to do some more research.
The Sonnet and 96 are different cars, are they not? The 96 had that whole "beached whale" thing going on.
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#121294 - 10/10/03 09:12 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Diamond Poster
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A Grant Wood painting.
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I can not find the V8 listed -only the S3 and V4. I will keep looking for that V8. The friend that made the conversion also had one he kept for street. (His V8 was built for the salt flats.) This was long ago, but he got pulled over for DWI by three police departments. He was speeding but they could not get a radar reading from behind on the front-engine, front wheel drive car because of all the fiberglass. He may not still be with us.  I don't know how we survive youth.
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#121296 - 10/10/03 09:30 PM
Re: Morgan Garage
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Diamond Poster
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A Grant Wood painting.
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Don't ask me why he took the rally car on that route! The Sonetts I keep refering to are actually Sonett III's. According the net the entire Sonett run was from the mid 60's to 1974 and they only made about 10,000. Again, they are cheap! Have a good weekend. I am working tomorrow. Still trying to clean up after my rapid CIP procedural changes.
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They have some newer vehicles that look like rally racers or something out of a Fast & Furious movie 
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