From Moss Motoring 1984
I received a call the other day from an MGA owner looking for used parts. He mentioned owning a couple of roadsters. Why is it, I thought to myself at that point, that most British sports car owners have more than one. It’s just like the old potato chip commercial. You can’t own just one. In my local MG Club most of the officers own more than one MG. The president owns two and just bought a third one for his daughter. Suurre he did! He was driving the third one himself at the last club tour. Of course a British car enthusiast will go to any lengths to buy a second, or even a third car.
As soon as one purchases that first British sports car, a chemical reaction takes place in the brain that sets off the tireless pursuit of the number two sports car. There are many ways of justifying owning two British sports cars. The first and most logical reason is so that one has something to drive when the number one car breaks. Have you ever tried to haul the dead engine block of one British sports car in another British sports car?
Then there is always the infamous parts car that needs “only a little work” to get running. Or if you don’t want two of the same model you could always say you need variety in your sports cars, for example, an MG for work and a Healey for the week end. Maybe you need a Spitfire for the summer and a GT6 for winter, or a Sprite to commute in and a XKE for the occasional night on the town.
Finally there’s the race car. Needing a race car is the best excuse known to man for getting that second sports car. If you want to go vintage racing you have to get something older. If you want to go SCCA production racing you need one not quite street legal car as well as something to tow it with, requiring not only a second but a third car. Some racers even think XKE’s make classy tow cars.
The garage racer that never leaves the garage is the most cost effective way of not going racing. This beast is the second car of the bench racer who will someday build his number two car into a racer. It sits there with a stripped out interior, waiting for the full race engine that its owner still can’t afford. Garage racer owners can pose as race drivers without ever risking getting their doors blown off just by saying they have a car but they’re still scrounging pennies for a set of Goodyear Bluestreaks. These bench racing garage racer owners seem to have found the most impressive reason for owning more than one British sports car.
'Bet You Can’t Own Just One!' have 3 comments
September 6, 2016 @ 7:56 am Gerry Geil
This title caused me to immediately recall a picture I saw on the web of 5 MG’s wedged neatly into a single car garage. I pulled it off and saved it in the hopes I could show it to my wife to bolster my opinion that,” I’m not this bad”. My argument for obtaining a 4th MG is almost predictably rebuked by a comment such as “There’s already too many in the garage and you are not putting my car outside”.
September 7, 2016 @ 10:54 am Pat Sanchez
These cars are like potato chips, you can’t have just one. I haven’t gone the smaller, faster route, I have gone the older, bigger route. two Morris Minors, a Morris 8 SE and now two Austin Low Loaders! Like golf clubs, each one has a specific use. Morris sedan for bad weather, but you want to drive days. Morris convertible for Sunny days. Austin Low Loader for moving people.
September 10, 2016 @ 9:05 pm Fred
My Wife and I have gone about this another way. We started with with a Cortina Deluxe then a little while later found a Cortina GT to make a race car out of, we never drove them and they are still sitting in a corner of the shop. My wife found a ’67 Sprite race car on e-bay, we won the auction and started vintage racing. After 5 years of racing the ’67 Sprite, we sold it and bought a ’63 MG B race car from a fellow racer in our club and have been racing it for 4 years now. Last fall we found a ’61 AC Ace replica built on a ’67 MG B on Craigslist, so we now have our street car to enjoy although I am still going through it and properly repairing things that were not done correctly.