[Healeys] NZ made MG's

Alan Seigrist healey.nut at gmail.com
Mon Feb 18 02:46:14 MST 2008


Hi Jack, et. al.,

My Kiwi friend who is the head of the local MG car club was able to dig this
information up for you.  Very very interesting.  I have to imagine those
chome bumper V8 MGBs conertibles should be worth an absolute fortune... even
the Rover ones they made a few years back for the Tokyo market are worth
$50K plus, in my opinion these are worth much more because they look
original, whereas the Rover versions were somewhat modified in appearance.

Best,

Alan

 ----- Original Message ----- *From:* mgcarco
*To:* Sue Martin ; Colin Barlow
*Sent:* Monday, February 18, 2008 4:02 PM
*Subject:* Re: NZ made MG's

Hello Sue & Ernie & Colin

Thank you for the interest.

It was some years ago in 1988 that we produced No1 from a BMH heritage body
shell and went on to complete 9 cars before the NZMC sold out to Shorters
Jaguar Rover consortium. We had an order for 10 cars initially with the
option for another 10.

If you look on the  UK MG Car Club V8 register website there is an
article featuring V8 No 7 owned by Charles Clark.

It came as a surprise to me that after Charles was insulted by a NZ Car
magazine reporter describing his car as a replica, that Charles made contact
with UK V8 register and obtained their acknowledgement that the 3 NZ V8 MGB
roadsters we built are in fact the only Dealer sanctioned V8 MGB's in the
world. As you know MG only built V8 BGT's. Quite a surprise, as I had not
thought about that aspect. The five 4 cylinder cars were dealer sanctioned
as well but not unique of course.

There has been a few attempts to write the history of our NZ cars (2 spring
to mind, Dren Errington, Alan Dick) but nothing has concluded predominantly
because I have had little time to prepare the information. I have retained
all the records, many dozens of photos, have some sales brochures left and
some of the special key rings are left.

I have the intension to provide some web pages on the Cars in the future and
had hoped to have this done before the 20th anniversary of when they were
first advertised for sale in April 1989. It would be wonderful if we could
get as many of the cars as possible together in one place during 2009.

I have attached the NZ Car magazine articles for your perusal and a picture
of  4 cars from the left No7 V8, No6 V8, No9 4 cylinder, and no1 4 cylinder.
No 9 is in Australia, No 1 in Paraparumu, No6 I have retained, and No7 is
with Charles.

There is an interesting twist to the story of how NZMC became involved and
why, but I will leave that story for the Journalists to write up, hopefully
before 2009.

Regards Rod

R L Brayshaw.


M.G.Car Company of New Zealand Ltd.
25d Crosby Lane
Katikati RD1   3177
Bay of Plenty
New Zealand.

Postal Address
P O Box 114
Katikati   3166
Bay of Plenty
New Zealand.

Phone +64 7 549 4250 House
Phone +64 7 549 4251 Workshop
Fax     +64 7 549 4252

parts at mgcarco.com
mgcarco at clear.net.nz

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