50th Anniversary John O'Groats Rally
This is a Rally that we have never yet managed to attend even though
it’s relatively close and has been talked about at meetings of the Club with
many of our members being regular attenders. We had bought a forlorn and
virtually abandoned MG RV8 about eighteen months ago and have been busily
working away at it in the hope that it would live to fight another day. As with
many projects like this - cars or motorcycles, unless it’s a ground-up ‘nut and
bolt’ restoration you eventually come to a point when you think you have
finished but become more critical of many smaller details, so then something
else is removed, dismantled and stripped, cleaned and refitted. This process can
go on for as long as you wish but with another significant ‘milestone’ birthday
rapidly approaching, I decided it was time to call a halt to the process and
take it for its first MOT in our ownership before another season slipped by! We
can always attend to these more minor cosmetic improvements but still enjoy
using it meantime.
Christine and I had a few ‘shakedown’ runs around the Island with the
car and sorted a few of the inevitable early teething troubles, eventually
booking the Hamnavoe Ferry for our day trip. Up bright and early on the rather
cloudy Sunday morning and with the car all ready to go, we put the roof down,
the tonneau cover on and away we went! During a chance meeting on the Ferry with
Colin Watt with his recently acquired ex-Davie Campbell Lancia, he enquired if
we were also going to the Rally and if we would be on the road run. Being a very
last minute decision to venture out, this was the first we knew of any such run
but it sounded a great idea and gave us the chance to cruise south along the
well surfaced A9 over the Causewaymire and then clip the corner off before
reaching Latheron, taking a great single track road by Loch Stemster (also
recommended by Colin - many thanks!) to arrive at the start in Lybster.
And a few bikes joined in
Ready for the road run
We were very pleasantly surprised at the sheer number of fantastic vehicles
lined up in the Main Street and enjoyed a brief walk up and down the cars,
motorcycles and trucks to take a few pictures. It was good to see Richard and
Audrey Shearer in the magnificent Buick with Michael and Susie Shearer taking up
the spare seats. All too soon it was time to saddle up and join the road trip of
about 30 miles via the A99 through Wick to John O’Groats and onto the Rally
field. This is where the car showed some of its bad manners, being difficult to
keep to the same speed as the convoy – one gear being too low and another too
high! It felt like a fuelling fault which I eventually tracked down to a faulty
lambda sensor.
It was turning much brighter by now and our initial concerns about keeping the
roof down gradually disappeared and sun-block became the order of the day. There
was a fine array of vehicles and the public arrived in very large numbers to
enjoy this special anniversary event. Lots of food and drink stalls were in
attendance to keep us all from wasting away and there were plenty of folk to
have a yarn with. A few more of the Orkney contingent arrived by various means
so it was good to meet up with some of them again.
Made it there!
A fine array of vehicles on show
Some of the entertainment
The car created
quite a bit of interest as there are not many about and few even know of their
existence, thinking it’s some sort of conversion; in fact only 307 U.K. spec
vehicles were built and only 139 of those were in British racing green, the
colour of our car. This exercise was intended to resurrect the MG marque, code
named ‘Project Adder’ and involved fitting the fuel injected 3.9 litre all alloy
V8 engine from the then current Range Rover into a much modified, zinc coated MG
B body shell built by British Motor Heritage at the rate of 15 a week. The
external bodywork was made by Abbey Panels – a well respected company often
associated with Jaguar. At that time the specification was quite good, with
leather seats, burr elm dashboard and specially made alloy wheels, although
strangely enough there was no power steering or electric windows and they were
supplied with a rather primitive unlined hood. Back then in 1993 they came with
a rather hefty price tag of £26,500. Most of the short production run of 2000
vehicles were sent to Japan, although some of those have now been re-imported as
the stringent Japanese emission laws make it very costly to use them there as
they age.
We eventually left the field after 4 o’clock and had a steady ride back to
Thurso to take on more fuel, both for the car and ourselves! The latter was
accomplished at the Weigh Inn en route to the Ferry as we still had enough time
before joining the queue for another very pleasant crossing with a very full
boat.
Leaving the ferry we only had about 15 miles to drive home, again the roof was
still down and as we sat having a coffee later we reflected on what was a great
day out with other enthusiasts and pleased that the car - unused properly for
almost 20 years had acquitted itself very well – other than the fuelling issue
which I’ve now sorted.
Ian and Christine Stallard