Christopher’s story

During the start of lockdown, my father and I were thinking about doing a project together but we weren’t sure what to we should do.

My father works for the Martin Gilbert’s garage in Abingdon and one day he turned to his boss and asked what was happening with an old MGB that had been sat in the corner of the garage for the last 3 months with no one working on it.

My father was advised that the owner had wanted them to see if they could get it going again as they wanted to sell it.

The car had been sat in a garage since the late 1980’s and the owner had needed to sell the car in order to bring in some money.

Where the car had been sat for so long the engine was no longer turning over and the cost of a rebuild was not on the cards.

The owner had tried selling the car online but either out of luck on my behalf or just the amount of work the car needed it didn’t sell.

We decided to put in an offer and it was accepted.

After signing all the paperwork over and going through the logs we realised we had found something more than we had expected.

I initially didn’t know what a GT LE was but after asking a few questions we soon knew.

With a bit of money from Gran, both myself and my father were able to start buying parts and getting the car back together.

As the car had been sat for so long, we would surely find rust and all sorts of holes, but once we got it on a lift and in the air, we were surprised to find that there was only minor surface rust.

My father remarked that he had seen more rust on cars a quarter of its age.

I think one of the biggest surprises was how many miles the car had done, seeing as the car is over 30 years old now 11,000 original miles was quite a pleasant revelation.

After a full engine rebuild and a few new parts, our find is now well on its way to being a great little car.

The car is a great source of pride to me and my father and we look forward to one day bringing it out to show everyone.

 

Chris