Young Members Branch

MG AND TRIUMPH

You have probably heard by now that this year’s big MG event is now twinned with this year’s big Triumph event, to form a conglomerate of British automotive goodness. If you’ve been reading our articles (this one marks my two-year anniversary of me writing on behalf of the YMB!) then you will probably be aware of the many misadventures featuring myself in my MGB GT, and TR Youth leader Charlie Crawshaw in his TR7.

In the spirit of looking forward to what will no doubt be a hilarious weekend, and with plenty of collaboration between our two youth groups to be announced in good time, I’d like to recall a misadventure or two between MG and Triumph.

The first that comes to mind is an epic hour-and-a-bit road trip from Derby to a greasy spoon café between Worksop and Doncaster. This was before we’d heard of the MGCC or TR Reg, and supposedly a Facebook group was hosting a young people’s retro car meet there. The journey up was completely uneventful, and the event itself was pretty quiet, so after a massive breakfast we hit the road again.

Main roads turned into country roads, and eventually we found a green lane through some woodland. Reasoning that both TR7 and MGB were cars with rally pedigree, we decided to tackle it. It got a bit tight and twisty through the tree roots, but the real problem came later on. I’m sure you’re familiar with old dirt roads, with tyre tracks either side with raised ground in the middle. These tracks soon became very deep, far too deep for our sports cars. This was easily overcome though! Just line up one pair of wheels with the centre, stick the others onto the verge, and straddle the deep stuff. We got home no issue at all.

Another is the annual February MG Triumph spares do that we attended in the TR7. After arriving late having fitted new front wheel bearings en route, some proper TR7 seats were purchased at a bargain price. So good was this, in fact, that we didn’t even consider how we were going to get them home! We thought about doing a seat swap in the car park and flogging the old ones for 50p. However, it turns out that if you put the roof down and the seats fully forward, you can cram another pair upside down behind them.

It was a chilly winter’s day, but not unbearable. That is, until it started raining and later snowing heavily. I can attest to the fact that the faster you drive, indeed, the less wet you become! But you do get colder.

There are far too many daft stories to tell within this one page alone, and there will certainly be many more to tell after the Triumph MG weekend. I hope to see you there.