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Many of you will
remember the late Russell Crew's immaculately
prepared British Racing Green MGB setting
records at the hillclimb and putting on a show
at Morgan Park and Leyburn. Those closer to him
will also remember that his next project was to
restore an MGB GT.
While Russ loved his "B" nearly
more than me, his ultimate aim was to prepare an MGB GT to the standard
of the legendary "Sebring" MG. He had purchased the huge flared
guards, an old orange standard GT and a V8 P76 motor and was ready
to go.
It was a big job - there was a lot
of rust in the body and lots of things to find out about changing it
to take the V8 and changing struts and things etc. I must admit a
lot of it went over my head and my memory is getting a bit rusty on
the specifics of parts etc but Russ had a photo of a Sebring
downstairs in our rumpus room and if his was going to end up looking
like that, then it was worth all the time and money!!
He stripped the body right back to
bare metal and had it painted black and was ready to start taking out the rust. At the start of 2002, he was
plagued with back trouble (a symptom of the cancer that finally took
him although we didn't know that then!) but still persisted in
painstakingly drilling out pieces of the frame and floor and
replacing them, despite his agony at times! |
Sadly, that was as far as he got and I
was determined to try and get it finished for him. I had the chassis
taken out to a spray painter I knew and he undercoated it and
finished replacing the floor sections.
Then it went to Barry
Evans who had the engine bay adapted to take the V8 and finally back
to the spray painter for the final coat. Unfortunately the spray
painter took my "take your time" too literally and it sat out there
for another 12months before I finally managed to get him to finish it.
However in that time, I finally realised that it was going to be too big a job and
too costly to keep going so I decided it was best to sell it to
someone who could finish it the way Russ would have liked.
When a fellow from Melbourne bought
it, intending to replace his original car after smashing it at
Sandown, I was therefore sad to see it go but happy that it would be
racing in the big league when finally finished.
He promised to send me photos of
it and finally did so last week. He also reported that
they "ran at Sandown this weekend and came first in class (Fast Road) + fifth
and second outright in the MG races" I think Russ would be
pleased!! Story:
Glenda Crew
Photos of the restoration below: |
