At one point, I owned three MGBs concurrently: My trusty but rusty ’67, a 1968 MGB-GT which was literally a parts car, and this 1969 MGB, which had a knocking rod in the engine. The idea was to pull the engine from the GT and put it in this car, making one decent machine. Why I never got around to that still puzzles me. I sold all three for $2000 to a guy from Shelton.

MG never offered a light metallic blue like this, but it’s a handsome shade. I bought this car from a guy down in what would now probably be considered Seatac. He had knocked a huge hole in the side of his basement wall so he could store cars in there, probably not up-to-code, and in retrospect not the greatest idea, perhaps!

This car drove OK but the rod knock was definitely an eye-opener. BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG constantly when running. Like I say, I had a good spare engine just sitting there. I was working so much at the time, though, that I never got up enough gumption to get it done.