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A friend of mine is a noted expert on MGs, particularly the pre-World War 2 cars. He has three in his garage and we took one out today for a ride. The car is a totally restored 1933 MG L-2, a car with 140 supercharged horsepower. Weighing in at 1700 pounds, it definitely moves when you step on the loud pedal.
You wear this car. You don't get in and sit down, you put it on. Sort of like a formula car with an extra wide cockpit. It is, shall we say, intimate. So we fired it up and shoulder to shoulder took off on a series of windy wooded roads in southern New Hampsire.
The normal windscreen was folded down so we just had the racing screens in place, 5 inch high x 12 inch wide pieces of curved glass that did a surprisingly good job of deflecting the wind.
The transmission is one interesting piece. It is a "pre-selective" unit, meaning you put the shifter in the gear you want and when the time comes to change up or down, you hit the clutch and bang! you're in that gear. After about 15 minutes of driving I could feel the heat coming off the gearbox and knew it would be unwise to let my bare ankles rest on it. I remembered how old sports cars had cockpit heat issues, and in this car the gearbox is right there, inches from your feet, not covered by part of the floor pan.
The ride was old sports car firm, but actually not all that bad. The car has decent roadholding and cornered quite well for a 75-year-old car. We spent about an hour cruising around, most of it nicely above the speed limit. The car has no speedometer, but my pal has rigged up a GPS so we could see our speed. He's not sure he could get away with telling a cop that his 1933 car has no speedometer.
The car is worth a boatload of money--well into 6 figures--since it is only is the second one ever made and there are only about 80 like it left on the planet. Understandably, I didn't get to take the wheel. Maybe (hopefully) some other time.
The wind in your hair, the mechanical clatter of the engine and gearbox, the vibrations, the exhaust note and the elemental sense of driving, riding and motion in the L2 is as far removed from modern cars as going up in a Stearman biplane is from riding in Gulfstream jet. Even my first car, a '63 MG Midget, was far more refined than this delightful machine. As I left his house in my 9K, the turbo boosting me nicely down a country road, I realized just how different our cars are today and just how far we've come.
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