1980 MG B

This car was built on the 3rd of October 1980 and delivered to the other side of Oxford from the Abingdon works to a dealer in Kidlington on 14th October. It was sold to a Mr Pearce, and registered KJH 240W on March 25th 1981.

Mr Pearce kept the car until his death around five years ago, after which it was left to his sister who also passed away soon after. It was registered in her husband’s name but never driven – indeed, stored on a ramp for a couple of years, before being sold to our vendors last year, who are the only ones to have used it on the road, bar the original owner.

They have enjoyed it for a year but find it’s not getting used as much as they hoped because you just can’t take two dogs with you – so the Range Rover comes out more often.

As it is now, the car is showing just 56,700 miles which appears to be entirely genuine – there are lots of old MoTs to support it. And speaking of tests, the car is now old enough not to need one, though it hasn’t yet been re-registered with its new tax-free Historic Vehicle status. It’s MoT tested until the end of October this year.

It looks to be a very good, original survivor, probably having had the odd bit of paintwork in the past and perhaps due for some more if you were going to start chasing rosettes, but at the moment it presents in very nice condition and is driving beautifully.

Black is an unforgiving finish but there’s no doubt it suits a rubber-bumper ‘B’ very well indeed, reducing the contrast between those bumpers and the body and giving the whole shape much more unity. It also works really well with the chrome side-strip.

The paint on this car has a fine shine but if we’re nit-picking, it isn’t perfect. Look a bit more closely and you’ll find a rather orange-peely finish below that side-strip in places, possibly indicating a lower-half respray at some point? But we’re guessing – the information on any previous cosmetic work did not make the transition from the late long-term owner to the vendor.

There are also a couple of minor patches of microblistering on one side of the bonnet, but what you won’t find is rust bubbles. The top wing seams have tiny bleb-like traces here and there, yet on the whole the car looks in very fine fettle – wheel arches and sills all blameless, and only the front and rear steel strips visible under the bumpers showing any loss of paint and corrosion, if you crawl underneath and peer upwards. The valances themselves are fine, though.

The car rolls on the right Rostyle wheels, with a fifth in the boot. They are shod in a mixture of Firestone (rear) and Viking Sport (front) tyres, all of which have plenty of life left. Each wheel has a locking nut to keep it in place.

What little brightwork there is looks good, though the MG badge on the nose has lost some of its blacking over the decades. The lamps and window glass look smart and undamaged while the convertible hood appears to be new. There is also a tonneau cover for the full classic roadster look. Finishing off the smart exterior are a set of MGB hexagon-badged mudflaps.

The blackness continues in the cockpit, with seats, carpets, dash and door cards all in their Sunday best. It looks very original with the exception of a Pioneer CD radio head unit and some Goodmans speaker pods in the door cards.

The door cards themselves are a little wrinkled with age, but not damaged, while the seats barely look worn in. MGB interiors are generally pretty tough and the interior of this low-mileage, much-cherished car has therefore survived very well. That original steering wheel seems large and thin-rimmed by modern standards but it’s nice to see it there, when so many others are replaced by wood-rimmed items that look more at home in 1960s cars.

Dials, gauges and switches all do what they should and the sun visors have neither corroded solid on their rods or swollen with damp…another good sign. In the boot, a clean carpet and a spare wheel can be removed to reveal an amazingly shiny and unaffected boot floor. You don’t find them like this very often!

It starts and runs just as it should, idling nicely and revving with the familiar gruff voice of the B-series on twin SU carbs. The engine bay is notably clean and smart – the air filter housings still have their Unipart stickers on them and the rocker cover has that little Austin Morris logo of three blue stripes – all very 1980!

There’s a plastic in-line fuel filter to keep any tank debris out of the carbs but otherwise everything looks standard, even the wiring. There’s a small amount of paint lost on the bulkhead under the heater box.

Peering right underneath, there’s nothing but good news that we could see. New or nearly new components – bits of exhaust, suspension bushes – suggest up-to-date maintenance, and it’s all hanging from an unusually sound-looking hull. The castle rails and outriggers appear solid behind their usual coating of Leyland underseal.

Only here and there is it beginning to flake, but there’s ample opportunity to scrub it and add some more before any damage occurs. The area around the base of the engine is a little moist from your typical British classic oil mist, but there are no leaks we could spot. Indeed, a cobweb on a lower wishbone probably tells the story – this is a car with a lot more garage time than road time in recent years and needs to be enjoyed.

The best feature of the car’s history folder is the sheaf of old MoTs, outlining a regular but modest mileage that settled down to just a few thousand a year by the early 1990s – 21,000 that year; 28,000 by 1993, 31,000 by 1995, 36,000 by 1998 and so on, with the bulk of the 56,000 it‘s now showing having been completed by 2008, when it was showing 53,000.

Away from the MoTs, there are sundry small bills from recent years for items like a new hood in 2017, a new oil cooler pipe this year, wishbone bushes and bolts last year, a new rear exhaust and a spot of wiring in May, and so forth. The original service book is there, with stamps from a dealer in Wantage lasting from new to 1990. There’s also a V5C in the vendor’s name. This shows two former keepers – the original owner and the brief ownership in his sister’s family, when it wasn’t used.

Also present are a few useful and interesting MG books and manuals.

This is a rare find nowadays – an MGB roadster that’s effectively a one-owner example and which has lived all its life in the county in which it was born. It’s been used lightly but regularly and though not in concours condition, is very smart and could easily be improved if you wanted to start winning prizes.

As it is now, it’s a great example of the most usable classic roadster there is. We think it will fetch between £6,000 and £10,000, which frankly looks something of a bargain. Good MGB roadsters have been at least that much money for 20 years or so, while a lot of rivals have become more expensive.

With amazing club support, a host of specialists supplying everything you’ll ever need and no list of ‘jobs to do’ before you can enjoy it, this is about as hassle-free as classic cars get. Bid now…and book yourself into a show next weekend!

Viewing is always encouraged and as stated this car is located at our Abingdon headquarters; we are open Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm and to arrange an appointment please use the ‘Contact Seller’ button at the top of the listing to make an appointment. Feel free to ask any questions or make observations in the comments section below, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.