Meet The Players

This 1959 MGA Coupe came from the same client who had the '58 Healey 100-6, the red & white one remember? At any rate, the Healey got sold and he had this MGAthat had been sitting for several years. It had been painted white years ago and never rubbed out, but the paint seems like it might shine with a little love.

His plan for the car is to make a fun driver out of it. The Healey was restored but original, and suffered from all the driveability issues of any British car of this era. SU carbs, Lucas electrics, bias ply tires, and so much more. For thsi car, he decided he wanted to be able to jump in and go with modern reliability and modern horsepower as well. We are keeping the car in a race car theme, it will get a black number circle on both doors, and a minimal interior. The star of the show will be a turbocharged 2.3 liter four cylinder engine from a 1986 Ford SVO Mustang backed with a T5 5 speed stick. These motor were conservatively rated at 185 horsepower but routinely outran the 302 V8 Mustangs of the era. These motors came factory with forged rods, forged pistons and forged crank, about would easily make closer to 245 horsepower with very little tuning.

That's about as far as the vision has gone so far, be sure to follow along and see where this little missile ends up!

These cars were the later version of the MG T series that were first imported to the States after World War 2.

This Coupe model is much rarer than the Roadsters.

The Coupe body was much stronger than the Roadster and these cars were raced with a lot of success in the late 1950's and early 60's.

I would like to use the steel wheels, they look like Dunlop racing wheels used on the D Type Jaguars of the era.

We will use all new gauges to work with the SVO motor, but that beautiful banjo steering wheel stays.

This is the SVO motor as I got it. It's complete with all the smog stuff, accessories and other junk we have o use for,

Here it is after a couple hours of stripping it, now it looks like a proper turbocharged motor. I love the exposed timing belt and gears, reminds me of an Offy a little bit.

After I hit it with the power washer it will really look like something special. I will have to make a new intake manifold to reposition the throttle body forwards and I might have to make a new turbo manifold to tuck it in more tightly. Stay tuned!