Introduction
Recently, if you’ve been reading the MGB Driver magazine of the North American MGB Register (NAMGBR). You may have seen several articles and comments about originality. This seems to have sparked quite a bit of discussion back and forth about whether originality is important and the various modifications many owners have made. Given the strength of opinions out there I’m not out to try and convince anybody they’re either right or wrong. I’m simply adding a another perspective since I’ve been involved in doing concours judging for the last couple of years. I’ve found it has its own set of thrills and excitement. First and foremost I’m in the camp of “it’s your car, do what you like with it/to it”. However, if you find yourself with a very original car I would ask that you pause to consider keeping it original before undertaking irreversible changes. You may find that thinking about concours could provide as much fun and excitement as some modifications will provide.
Getting Started – My Story
My story is one of discovering concours by accident rather than seeking it out. For example at my first ever car show in 2005 I was confused by the fact that everyone seemed to be putting the bonnet up on the cars! It turns out that when I bought “Tigger” my 77B roadster it was an incredibly original car with very low miles. There were various temptations to do modifications, such as twin carb conversions, but something made me resist these. I did however, do an overdrive transmission conversion. But based on my understanding of the NAMGBR concours rules. that sort of thing is allowed. It’s based on being as the car left the factory or as the car “could” have left the factory. Since I have a blue label OD, which is year appropriate for my 77B, which should be OK for NAMGBR concours judging.
First Concours
Having resisted the urge to make any major changes to my car I was convinced by Robert that I should give concours judging a try at MG 2008. I was a little nervous about this because I knew that my car was neither pristine nor perfect. I drive my cars a lot and so they will always have dings and nicks, these plus things like a Nardi steering wheel and modern CD/Radio unit are not original. I’ve driven to all NAMGBR events I’ve attended and the only time my cars should see a trailer should be when something bad has happened and AAA has come to my rescue. For me concours doesn’t have to mean “trailer queen” but again everyone’s decisions on these things are their own. NAMGBR handles this from the perspective that a very original car with some history or “patina” can still beat a full restoration car that may have some things incorrect from an originality perspective or, in some cases, have been over restored.
As with anything you’re doing for the first time, or is going to be new to you, its normal to be a little tense or unsure of how things work and this was true for me at my first concours event. Still the NAMGBR people judging and other entrants are friendly and helpful and give out a lot of information. At the end of a show you find out your score out of a maximum of 1000 points and 1 point is deducted for each element the judges find incorrect against a stock factory car. At some point after the event, you’ll receive the actual judging sheets, 6 sheets in total from each of the judges who score the cars for 3 categories; originality, exterior quality/condition & technical inspection (everything has to actually work), interior quality/condition (engine bay, wheels/undercarriage, cockpit). This was what really kicked up the curiosity level for me because now I could see what had been identified as causing me to lose points.
My MG2008 result was 927.5 which I was happy with as I had mentally pre-determined that as long as I broke the 900 mark it would be a good result. It turned out that the biggest impact to my score was my Nardi steering wheel as the steering wheel alone is worth 20 points and mine being completely unoriginal, meant that scored 0 out of 20. There were other minor things, hose clamps in the engine bay, other things in the cockpit and a scratch on the windshield. Armed with this information and a serious desire to try and improve my score, concours the bug had got me, I set about some projects over the winter months in order to prepare for MG2009.
Seaking Out Original Parts
I’ve since found that it is quite exciting to try and track down original parts and find documentation and pictures that can help you establish what is and isn’t correct/original. I now own a copy of Original MGB by Anders Ditlev Clausager which helps, although the pictures are not the best and I’ve been hunting on eBay and other places for original items. With some reluctance, I must admit, the Nardi steering wheel has been replaced with an original rubberized wheel for the 77 model year that I got from the UK. Surprisingly I actually prefer the position and feel of the original wheel – that was a big surprise. I’ve also changed out the wooden gear shift knob for an original overdrive shifter knob which is original but shows some wear. In the engine bay I have replaced hose clamps as part of regular maintenance routines to use the original band style clamps and cleaned up and painted the engine block which had not handled the winter months very well and was significantly beyond “patina”. I also had my Zenith Stromberg carb professionally rebuilt and addressed some paint work touch ups including going through the entire boot area to touch up the past 30+ years of wear. Lastly I found things like the bags/containers for the tonneau rails and tonneau cover to complete the boot aspect and the original jack and lug nut spanner.
At MG 2009 my hard work paid off and I was rewarded with a score of 948. I must admit that I was really hoping for 950 or more but this was close enough. Judges change as do the cars that attend, based on the location, so there’s always going to be a challenge for consistency in results, that’s just the way it is. Still the challenge and energy to strive for originality is something I personally enjoy and hearing stories from other concours competitors is intriguing and entertaining as to what and how they have gone about getting their cars concours ready. No doubt some will think I am crazy for trying to keep things original and enduring the poor performance of an original rubber bumper car. To some degree I can appreciate that but I enjoy having the car original and the hunt for information and originality confirmation provides its own, but different, kind of rewards. Sure the twin carb cars run faster and I am lucky enough to experience that because I also have a 72B roadster that while nice will probably never be ready for a concours event. For sure concours won’t be everyone’s “cup of tea” but there’s a place for this type of effort to be admired just as much as a fine V6/8 conversion or updating with a supercharger, 5 speed conversions or more comfortable interior – these things will still get me to drool anyway. Still, I for one am interested in originality and happy to learn more about it and if possible help others in their own pursuit of having things factory correct. I think it would be a shame not to have any really good examples of an original car; it feels a little like an original animal species becoming extinct if there were no originals around. Sure things always adapt and evolve but I think there’s more than enough room for both schools of thought to co-exist.
Details of my win in 2013, the third in a row, are documented in this edition of the North American MGB Register bi-monthly magazine.
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