Hi, my name is John Whittaker, and I live in Reigate,Surrey. Today the 4th November 2022 I was lucky to purchase SID, the famous jubilee mgb gt ! I’ve been following the story of Sid for some time, from the previous owners Michelle & Steve Sanford. I really would appreciate if someone could please let them know Sid has gone to a loving home ! I haven’t owned a B for 20 years, but when I read about Sid, something or Sid pulled on my heart strings !
Regards John
Michelle Sandford shares her story .
This is Sid, he is a MGBGT Jubilee built in 1975 to celebrate 50 years of MG. This special car changed my life in many ways.
As a child my dad used to buy and sell cars including a lot of MGs, as a family of 4 (a very young me and my sister sat on roadster parcel shelf) we went everywhere in them, we lived in Dover, Kent but we went to Cornwall and even Scotland to see my grandad, happy days so MGs always have had a special place in my heart.
My then husband Steve had his own car body repair Business and was flicking through eBay in 2008 and came across a very sorry looking MG, it looked very scruffy, more rust than paint on the bonnet, headlining all hanging down but it had these remains of gold stripes along the sides and a dash plaque, it was listed as a Jubilee model, not ever heard of we watched the car and in the end decided to buy it. It wasn’t far from us in Kent and when we picked him up, he looked even worse in the flesh, but you could see he had something. He broke down on the way home, but we forgave him.
I began to research what he was and was fascinated by his Jubilee pedigree, I came across Colin Goodey who had started the MGBGT Jubilee & L.E owners club(j.u.l.e) We began restoring Sid to his original specifications and we got the bug. We now looked for Jubilees and our second one came from Harrow, as they all look the same, we named them so our first one became Sid from Sittingbourne, the second Harry from Harrow. We restored Harry and sold him to a man in France, then we moved on to Winnie from Warwick, again fully restored and now happily in Belguim. The first car show we did with Sid was a local one, and a gent came over and said he used to do the registers for the MGCC for the Jubilees! He used to own a concourse prize winning Jubilee and was impressed by Sid, so much so he offered us some original sill plates, I made him a promise to find his Old Jubilee and I managed to just before he died but I was heartbroken that it had been completely De-Jubileed and now had chrome bumpers and lots of other changes.
We went to the first MGBGT Jubilee & L.E meet in Abingdon, we met up and then followed the old v8 test track. It was lovely to meet up and I made lifelong friends. A few of us Kent owners decided to do a local show at Bromley which was effectively the first MGB Jubilee & L.E owners club(jule) show.
Since then we are usually found at many shows including the NEC classic car show. As a web-based club, we try to meet up occasionally in Abingdon so we can take our special cars home. Our last meet was for the Jubilees 40th birthday, which was 5 years ago shockingly, we were going to do the same for the L.Es 40th this year but sadly corona virus has stopped that.
Steve and I brought, restored, saved and sold 14 jubilees and L.E GT Sid retains a lot of parts sourced from our other Jubilees if they were an improvement. I became a moderator and historian for the club, as well as trying to keep our registers of these wonderful cars up to date. I constantly am answering enquiries and questions about Jubilees and L.Es and I just love it.
Sid is very well known in the MG world as he has featured in many magazine articles, he has been to car shows across England and one in France. He completely changed my life as now MG is such a huge part of it, I love finding new cars to add to our registers and explaining to people what these special cars are, ive met some amazing people and Danny from practical classics even introduced me to David soul!
Sid remains with Steve and has just had another restoration as he sat on my drive in all weathers which didn’t help him cosmetically.
I often tell people who ask me to verify if a car is a Limited Edition that there is something incredibly special about them and they have their own personalities and you will fall in love with it.
