My interest in MG sports cars started when I was 17, when the journey into Birmingham for my weekly driving lesson with BSM took me past a car sales showroom that had for sale a black MG TC for the princely sum of £165. I thought that I could afford that on my apprentice's wage, but asked my father for a loan of the money. I remember his answer to this day, " If you are learning to drive, it cannot be difficult, so I will learn to drive, we will not buy a flivver but something more suitable for me." So he paid for, taxed and insured a 1959 Mk 2 Ford Zodiac but never bothered to learn to drive himself. He realised it would be easier to ask me to drive him whenever he wanted to go anywhere. There I was at 17 driving a Ford Zodiac and all I had to do was put in the petrol.

Years later I realised it was not much fun driving "Euro-boxes" and wanted more out of motoring. A colleage told me of someone he knew called Tony Stafford who had an MG and that perhaps I should have a chat to him. I did this and found he had an immaculate TF (the proper one not the modern one) and this rekindled my desire to own a T type. He suggested I join the MG Octagon Car Club (for pre 1956 MG's), which is what I did, going to the club's local "natter". After they got to know me, "the new bloke without an MG car", one member called John Powell mentioned that a friend of his, Ken Williams, had an MG he might be selling. I went to see it, liked it, and purchased it.

I decided to call the car Flivver for reasdons I will describe later. I have since purchased the second TA as a restoration project for me later for my wife to drive. When they parked on the end of our drive my wife decided to give hers a name too and that, as it was a red car, was to be named Rosy.

Purchased in 2001 from a lady in Ilkeston, Derbyshire U.K. whose husband
had garaged the car in 1971 when the engine block froze and cracked.  He
intended to restore the car when he retired, unfortunately he passed
away before retirement and so his wife advertised the car on the
internet, this is how I came to buy it.  I purchased it as my retirement
project, I had purchased my first TA in concours condition in 1999 and
always felt a 'bit of a fraud' when people commented on how beautifuly
it had been restored, so this was to be my introduction to restoration.

As I already have one TA my wife decided that this one would be hers, so
it was registered in her name.  She can drive one, in 2000 she drove
'Flivver' to Berlin and back after I had had a minor operation on my
foot and could not use the clutch.

'Rosy' as this one has been named was what one would call a 'basket
case'.  It had has a 1960's restoration done to it and it sufficed in
those days but did not match up to the more exacting standard of today. 

Read more at my web site: www.rogersstudy.co.uk

Roger Bragger