Sometimes, in an effort to do good works, you get bitten. That’s how I ended up with this MGB-GT–not a bad car, but one which can’t carry the baggage we’ve accumulated together.

A friend–a lifelong Anglophile whose British car weakness is even worse than my own–had fallen on hard times, and had no car. A mutual friend and I decided to each pitch in $500 to help him buy a car–he could find it himself. What he found was this GT. It had a blown head gasket and leaking rear brakes, but was astonishingly rust free and otherwise seemed OK. At the time, I made the fatal error of saying “hey, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll buy it from you.”

Ouch. A week later, I get a call saying he just couldn’t deal with it. And so began the long process of my dumping money into the car to get it running and driving. I’m trying to sell it at the moment, but am not having any luck, despite the huge “discount” I’m giving over the raw price of the new pieces in it. But that’s a post for another time.

Ah, the lure of the rust-free British car. That’s the only thing that kept me from selling it for scrap when I bought my friend out of his misfortune, and that’s what has me paying to store it. “What if I ever want a GT? Will I ever see another as solid as this?” Madness lies there, and I finally realized it. Hopefully someone will figure out that $1000 “core charge” for any GT + $3000 in new parts + no rust repair needed = good deal at $2000. I’m not holding my breath.