1968 MG B GT - Supercharged K-Series

Fitted with, what we are told, a 400bhp supercharged 1.8-litre MG K-series engine and a six-speed sequential flat-shift gearbox and uprated suspension and brakes to match, this is the ultimate fast road or weekend track day car.

Initially fully restored in 2006 and again 2009 – increasing the power from 190bhp in ’06 to 250bhp in ’09 - this MGB GT has been heavily featured in the press over the years and is well-known in MGB circles. (Please visit the gallery section for some magazine features.)

Believed to have cost in excess of £100,000 to develop, Ed Braclik, the man who originally commissioned it, went on to become a director and co-owner at Frontline Developments.

Ed sold the MGB in 2012 to Max Wakefield, a gentleman racer who is handy enough behind the wheel to have raced old F1 cars. Max had his tame mechanic go over the car from nose to tail, fettling it to make sure it was in the very best possible condition and massively increasing the power to its current reported 400bhp, before he went on to use it for a series of trackdays.

It passed into the hands of the current owner in 2018. A serial car collector, time and space are taking their toll and he’s finding that he just isn’t using it as much as he thought he would, hence this reluctant sale.

Now being offered with a guide price that represents only around 20% of the development costs, this is a cheap and easy way to get behind the wheel of what is probably the fastest MGB in the country.

A short video of the car on track can be seen using this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht3IXa-__3I&authuser=0 

The bodyshell came from a two-owner from new 1968 car. It was de-seamed and fully seam-welded in 2006, and benefits from Sebring-style modifications to the front and rear. The rear tailgate is carbonfibre, and the front and side windows are polycarbonate, all in the name of saving weight.

But this is no stripped-down racing machine with the emphasis placed firmly on practicality at the expense of aesthetics because an awful lot of time and effort was expended in getting it all to align properly.

As an example, the lower front valance sits about an inch further forward than its designers intended in order to get it to meet the front wings. This degree of attention to detail is obvious throughout the entire car; we’d say it’s so good that it looks like a factory car, except the factory never made them this good…

Further exquisite details include an Aston Martin quick-release fuel filler cap, faired-in Perspex headlight guards, an external electrical cut-off switch, a single spotlight, union flag badging, front and rear towing eyes, and a bullet door mirror on the driver’s side of the car.

Finished in Aston Martin Meteorite Silver, as you can see from the photos the car still presents very well indeed. Free of rust and structural problems, the MGB has obviously picked up the odd stonechip here and there but it still looks amazing and, the seller tells us, is in need of nothing doing to it.

The ‘Le Mans’ Dunlop alloy wheels, complete with three-eared spinners, are in fine shape and shod with Yokohama AO48R 205/65 R15 tyres.

Work that needs doing is, according to the seller, er, nothing.

The interior was the subject of the same obsessive attention to detail as the exterior. Not surprisingly, the rear seat was junked in favour of a flat load space, and a full competition-spec roll cage installed.

The rest of the MGB trim was also stripped out and while it was replaced with a more competition focussed design, again, an awful lot of time and money went into making it look as good as possible. The work included trimming the door tops in foam-back dark grey Alcantara. Alcantara also covers the headlining, transmission tunnel, and dashboard. The result looks fabulous, and is as attractive as it is practical.

The passenger’s seat is a bespoke, lightweight item trimmed with Alcantara to match the rest of the interior, too. The driver’s seat is a full-blown carbon racing item, and both have been fitted with Willans’ 3” harnesses with alloy buckles to keep the occupants snug and secure.

The steering wheel is a lovely little suede Momo that sits in front of a bespoke dashboard that has been designed to contain with the sort of auxiliary gauges, switches and warning lights that you would expect of such a finely honed machine. These include dials for battery volts and amps, boost pressure, and engine oil temperature, plus an electrical cut-out switch.

A fire extinguisher has been fitted.

The full race-specification forged and lightened 1.8-litre K-Series VVT motor, is mated to a Rotrex supercharger. The result is predictably bonkers; the engine now develops an estimated 400bhp+, which is fed to the rear wheels via an alloy Frontline bellhousing and a six-speed Quaife ‘dog’ sequential gearbox that is controlled via a Geartronics flat-shift management system.

Why a sequential gearbox? Well, each gearchange takes around 11 milliseconds, which is, I think we can agree, quite a bit faster than you’d manage juggling a gearlever and a clutch…

The rear differential is a limited-slip jobbie with an uprated pinion bearing set, and the driveshaft and knuckle joints are all lightweight items.

Braking is taken care of via billet alloy four-pot calipers fitted with Green Stuff pads and 270mm ventilated discs at the front, and uprated drums and shoes at the rear. Braided steel brake hoses are fitted throughout.

The front suspension system comprises LM25 alloy upper wishbones and top mounts, 600lb springs lowered by 50mm, ¾” anti-roll bars, uprated and adjustable dampers, and polybushes throughout. The rear is via a five-link suspension with adjustable coilovers and AVO remote nitrogen reservoirs.

Other lovely touches are Magnecors competition HT leads, a custom alloy radiator, beautifully fabricated pipework for the supercharger, and one of the nicest engine bays we’ve seen in a long time.

But all that counts for nothing if it doesn’t deliver the goods and you need have no fears on that score; the result, depending on what state of tune you decide to adopt via the Emerald programmable ECU, is an MGB GT that takes around four seconds to reach 60mph - and it should be capable of around 165mph. In other words, there is plenty of power and performance.

So potent is the car that the standard wire wheels weren’t strong enough to handle the torque that is put through them, so period-style 6” x 15” Dunlop ‘Le Mans’ wheels were fitted.

The workmanship throughout is staggering in its execution and the bottom line is that this is quite possibly the fastest MGB in the country, if not the world.

The owner tells us that it is running beautifully, is staggeringly fast, and is in need of nothing doing to it.

Viewing is strongly recommended to fully appreciate just how well this MGB has been engineered.

NB. While it is perfectly capable of being used as a road car, the MGB has been set up with the track in mind, so the vendor has suggested that should the new owner want to use it on the road on anything like a regular basis it will almost certainly need detuning to make it a bit more tractable.

The MGB GT doesn’t have a current MOT certificate, and while it is exempt by virtue of its age, we would strongly encourage the new owner to have the car re-MOT’d at the earliest if they intend to use the car on the road.

The cost of an MOT is a small investment when offset against the purchase and upkeep of any classic car, and it gives an independent, third-party assessment of the car’s condition, which not only provides reassurance to the owner (and any subsequent purchasers) but might also be invaluable in the event of a bump when negotiating with the police and any interested insurance companies…

The car’s online MOT history shows nothing of concern whatsoever and confirms the car’s mileage. The car comes with a number of expired MOT certificates plus a huge quantity of invoices and bills to confirm the work that has been done to it over the years.

Please visit the documents section of the gallery of this listing where you will find photos of this and other paperwork to support our claim that this car has been built to the very highest standard.

It also comes with a copy of Enjoying MG, which ran a feature on the car in 2006, as did Retro Cars and MG Enthusiast over the years.

If you’d like to inspect the car prior to placing a bid – something we would encourage – then please contact the owner to arrange an appointment.

If you want a full-blown, race-spec/fast road MGB GT then there are plenty of companies out there who can build one for you. Hell, the MGB is so simple and the path so well trodden, that doing it yourself would be pretty straightforward, too.

But, you must be prepared to pay for the privilege; while every hobby has its cost, preparing and engineering a car to this specification will be a hugely costly exercise, as the six-figure sum this one set Ed back demonstrates. But we estimate this unique MGB will sell for between £19,000 - £25,000.

As ever, it’s better to let someone else do the heavy lifting, and there is no-one we would trust more to do this kind of work than Ed Braclik of Front Developments. He knows the marque intimately, and was so impressed with how his car turned out that he decided to join the company.

Viewing is always encouraged, and this car can be seen at the seller’s home in Liphook, Hampshire; to arrange an appointment please use the ‘Contact Seller’ button at the top of the listing. Feel free to ask any questions or make observations in the comments section below, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.

If needed, please remember we have a network of trusted suppliers we work with regularly and can recommend: Classic & Sportscar Finance for purchase-financing, Thames Valley Car Storage for storing your car, AnyVan for transporting it, and Footman James for classic car insurance.

BORING, but IMPORTANT: Please note that whilst we at The Market always aim to offer the most descriptive and transparent auction listings of any auction, we cannot claim they are perfect analyses of any of the vehicles we have for sale. While we use our trade experience to assess every car that comes through our hands (and between us we have bought hundreds of classic cars over the years for our personal use…) we are fallible, and our assessment of a car may contrast with that you might form yourself.

This is why we offer a far greater opportunity for bidders to view, or arrange a professional inspection on their behalf of, each vehicle prior to bidding than any traditional car auction, and we will never stop encouraging bidders to take advantage of this by going to see it in person.

That said, we do take a good look at the vehicles delivered to our premises for sale, but this only results in our unbiased personal observations, not those of a qualified inspector or other professional, or those formed as a result of a long test drive.

Additionally, please note that most of the videos on our site have been recorded using simple cameras which often result in 'average' sound quality; in particular, engines and exhausts notes can sound a little different to how they are in reality.