Andy Johnson has owned his Frogeye for 40 years. In that time it has been worked on extensively, but any changes have since had plenty of time to bed down so that today it is still sparkling, but with the kind of gentle patina that money can’t buy.
You see a lot of Sprites these days that have been restored, uprated, refurbished or whatever, but you don’t see many that look like they’ve aged slowly. I’ve had mine for 40 years and it has certainly been refurbished, but I like to think it doesn’t look new and sterile.
Mine is a 1960 car which I bought in 1977. At that point it had only had one previous owner, a Jeremy Patterson from Winchester. SJA is a Stockport County Borough Council registration, so quite how it ended up in Winchester I don’t know. Jeremy was an antiques dealer and must have looked after the Sprite reasonably well because 17 years was quite a long life for a cheap little sports car in those days. In that time he’d had the seats covered in leather, so now they have had at least 40 years to develop some patina.
I fell in love with Sprites because my sister and brother-in-law had a couple of Frogeyes. I did an apprenticeship as a tool maker at a diesel engine factory, Mirrlees Blackstone in Stamford, working on engines for trains that weighed about 17 tons. I finished my apprenticeship in 1975, and bought the Sprite two years later, just when I started travelling extensively in the UK and abroad for work. (Not in the Sprite though, as that was bought as a toy.)
Jeremy had given the Sprite a good quality respray so it looked very good cosmetically, but underneath the suspension was absolutely shot and it was in quite a poor way. I drove it home from Winchester on a dank October day, and it was not the pleasurable experience I had pictured. It was raining and the wipers were slow, the Frogeye had a heater but no demister (that was considered an optional extra by BMC!), the engine wasn’t ticking over properly... I made it back to Lincolnshire, put the Sprite in my garage and left it there for a few weeks.
Denne historien er fra August 2017-utgaven av MG Enthusiast.
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Denne historien er fra August 2017-utgaven av MG Enthusiast.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Love and devotion
Bob Nason waited eight years to get the car of his dreams and, 19 years later, he’s still smitten with it...
Tidy-up time
Craig continues his quest to save the modified ZS 120 he told us about in December’s issue of MGE and takes advantage of a break in the weather to focus on its bodywork.
XPress power
MGs on Track regular, Dave Pearce, has a range of MGs at his disposal including this rather special XPower SV-R.
Sparking memories
MGE reader Peter Morrey recalls his very first MG, his family’s experiences of the then-new MGA and advice from a chap with a bit of MG insider knowledge.
Gerry McGovern
When the MGF appeared, in 1995, it marked a return to the market for MG sports cars. MG Enthusiast caught up with the man responsible for the car’s styling.
MG's Twin-Cam engine
The Twin-Cam engine arrived in 1958 but was it a success?
Eyes peeled
This month Roger looks at other drivers’ habits and ponders whether autonomous vehicle lighting helps or hinders road users?
Dear Sir...
Paul Moran’s beautifully restored 1933 Midget J2 comes with some interesting documentation which illustrates just how the privileged new car owners of the 1930s dealt with the absence of a warranty.
CHEQUERED FLAG
THE ROADS LESS TRAVELLED... AND WHY THEY ARE WORTH SEEKING OUT
2019 HSRCA SPRING FESTIVAL
The 2019 Historic Sports and Racing Car Association Spring Festival was run during a brilliant spring weekend, between 28-29 September, in Goulburn (regional New South Wales).
