2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the MGB and to honour this Julius Thurgood of the Historic Racing Drivers Club will be running the MGB50 series along side his already successful Touring Greats and Grand Touring Greats race series. Yesterday’s event at the Goodwood Motor Circuit saw no less than four Works MGB’s reunited with past members of BMC’s Special Tuning and Competitions Department. Among them were Bill Price, Basil Wales, Peter Browning, Den Green, Brian Moylan and driver Alec Poole. We also saw the likes of Barry “Sideways” Smith who came along to demonstrate the MGB’s performance around the track. As well as the four MGB’s we had the beautiful green MGA “LBL 301” of Jon Savage. LBL 301 competed in the 1955 Le Mans 24 hour as well as the Mille Miglia in 1957 before being re-bodied by the MG development team in 1958. It was restored by Bob West who brought it down to Goodwood for Tony Dron to expertly pilot around the Sussex circuit. Dron also got out for a few laps in the works MGB’s which he remarked as being “a little quicker”.
There was a nice collection of cars to mark the 50th Anniversay of the MGB. Members of the MGA Register and others spent many months researching the provenance of this car while Bob West restored it to his usual high standard. The full story was published in Safety Fast! the magazine of the M.G. Car Club in November 2010. The conclusion published there was:-
“In summary, it is safe to conclude that this is not one of the 1955 Le Mans EX182 cars, being based on a 1956 production chassis, but it is a car prepared by the MG Development Department for the Fitzwilliam team and re-bodied by that department in 1958 after it was raced at The Mille Miglia, Goodwood, Silverstone and Nurbugring meetings in 1957. It has beeen re-created in the form as it was raced by the Fitzwilliam Team.”
Piers Hubbard
MGA Register Historian,
M.G. Car Club