Bangers To Treasures

Iain Ayre gets out his crystal ball and takes a look ahead to the future of practical nostalgia.

Okay, roll with me here – this is for your grandchildren. My 1938 MG TA was a banger in about 1950. The original rather fragile Morris-based engine, and/or possibly the wet clutch and crunchy synchro-less gearbox, either blew up or ground to a halt at some time in the 1950s or 1960s.

‘Blast,’ said the now long-dead owner, ‘do we bin the old thing or what?’ In the end they hacked another engine and box out of some other manky old banger MG, or possibly a Wolseley 4/44, and bunged that in. The steering box got in the way, so they welded a lump of iron to the chassis, drilled a couple of holes and bodged the box on so that it more or less steered.

Thirty years later, its undoubted cheery charms remained intact, and people began to see it as a classic. It was taken to bits and tarted up on an amateur weekend basis by a bunch of friends, and treated to some rechroming and a nice coat of paint. It won prizes at local car shows, although it was mechanically largely either butchered or knackered. The rear spring hangers wore out, so somebody banged a bit of steel into the hole to keep it going for a bit longer. I put quite a bit of work into it, and got it reasonably safe to drive. Its value was rising from banger to cheap classic to better classic, and eventually I swapped it for a Bentley. Cheers all round.