[Healeys] Driving in Provence

[Alan Seigrist]

That's funny.  The reason why I bought my first BJ8 in 1985 was because my
mom gave me her California gulp valved '79 MGB when I was in high school,
and it was too slow.

It was a fun car to drive but was an absolute gutless wonder and coolant
always had a penchant for leaking onto the distributor.  A particular
favorite was the Stromberg carb had multiple avenues to leak fuel onto the
red hot catalyctic converter, so going on trips longer than 100 miles
usually resulted in more than a 50/50 chance of engine fire.  Luckily I
always carried a fire extinguisher and never let the engine fires get past
the damage phase.  I almost died in a head on after I realised the car was
not able to really pass another car doing 55 on a two lane country road.
Of course knowing what I know now, I would have removed the cat, put dual
SUs on it,  removed the gulp valve and air pump, and probably removed the
rubber bumpers too if I could.

The other option was buy an old BJ8 and throw lots of money at it over the
decades.  I chose the latter.







On Mon, Sep 14, 2026 at 9:06 AM Stephen Hutchings <s.hutchings at rogers.com>
wrote:

> I decided to treat myself because I had a significant birthday this year,
> and I rented an MGB for most of last week in Provence. My daughter lives in
> Marseille so my wife and I usually visit in September.
> I could have had a Healey (BJ7) but I wanted to try something different,
> and the MG was a little cheaper.
> I missed the grunt of the Healey at times, but I loved the steering and
> handling of the MGB, and the roads are terrific…the rental agreement states
> that you’re not allowed to venture onto the main motorways and the speed is
> restricted to 60 mph, but who cares? The BMC 1800 BMC engine feels like
> it’s revving quite high at 50 in 4th gear…too bad only 20% of them came
> with O/D.
> The stable my car came out of also had a few other British sports cars,
> and a couple of genuine Porsche Speedsters…I would not want to be
> responsible for the flawless black paint on one of those Speedsters! You’re
> bound to be threading some narrow village streets with local drivers coming
> the other way, and giving no quarter.
> Anyway, a great experience, and much cheaper than shipping the Healey
> over, I highly recommend it!
>
> Stephen, BJ8
>
> Sent from my iPad
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