The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (October 16 - October 31, 2026)
Friday October 16, 2026:
Slept in, woke up late, car chat over breakfast in Montgomery, Alabama. Getting our act together,fuel up the car and point it south early afternoon, heading for a week end car how in Fairhope, Alabama. We slipped onto I-85 southbound, following Wayne Stambaugh's red MGA 1600 Coupe. He seems to have a rather tall final drive ratio in that car, running 4000+RPM at a steady 60-MPH. At that pace it would be a bit more than 2-1/2 hours to get down to I-10. Yes, we cruised right through non-stop, sneaking southwest past Atmore. Wayne turned off to head south on AL-287 at Bay Minette, going to visit his daughter.
We continued on I-85 a bit before turning south onto AL-225, just skirting around the western tip of the Florida panhandle. Even then, still another 40 miles to go. Merge into US-31 momentarily before turning left to continue on US-90 at Spanish Fort. Crossing I-10, US-90 turns into US-98, keep going through Daphne. Entering Fairhope. we took a one hour stop at a McD, just to fine tune our arrival time.
By 5:30-pm CST it was beyond dusk when we arrived at Fairhope United Methodent Church. Tough taking pictures in the dark, but there were a few British cars here.
Found our way inside to meet several dozen people, just in time for a nice buffet dinner, and introduction party for participants of the car show. After selecting some food, I took a short step to a far corner of the room to fill ouit a registration form of the car show. When I returned there was a large bag on the table with near 20 pounds of goodies, a socket wrench set, lots ofcleaning supplies and such. Navigator had unwhittingly acknowledged posession of a winning raffle ticket. Now what? No space to carry that stuff in the Magic Trailer. Eventually we gave it back and graciously asked them to draw another ticket and give it to someone else.
Just getting into this when the phone rang. It was Wayne with the red MGA Coupe reporting loss of his hydraulic brakes shortly after we had split up on the road. He had continued on to his daughter's place, carefully using the hand brake (wow). Will chat more about this later. Meanwhile, he would be staying with his dughter, and didn't need the hotel room he had booked in Daphney, so would we like to take that for tonight? Okay, can do. After the party, into the hotel room and sitting down again around 10-pm, we hd time to call him and chat more about the brakes failure. Some investigation and poking around with a flash light revealed a burst right rear wheel cylinder with brake fluid on the wheel. More of a relief,as we know how to handle that. In the morning he would get a small Vice-Grip to pinch of the rear brake hose, then fill fluid and bleed the circuit to have front brakes only. Drive carefully and avoid a tow. Now get some sleep.
Saturday October 17, 2026:
Show day. Up early, call to Wayne Stambaugh, who had a head start on on us. Check out of hotel, into Mc'd for breakfast, then head back into town for the car show. Back at the Fairhope United Methodist Church before 11-am, checking in , getting parked, being joined a few minutes later by Wayne with his red MGA Coupe with patched up brakes. Relax and enjoy the South Alabama British Car Festival. Beautiful day. going to top out bout 70dF with full sun, and quite a lot of shade trees when you don't want to be cooked. Official count was 146 cars registered, 138 on the show field. The report immediately below has most of the pictures deleted for brevity. For the full set of 70 photos and notes from the car show, see supplimentary photos page
Time for chat and taking pictures. Start with my roadster and Wayne's coupe. This is the first time he has been to car show where he has one of his own cars in the show. Good turn out of 8 MGA today, followed by one each MG TF, TD, TC.
These on left look like two more MG TD, but they might be older. For sure the third one is a 1930 MG M-Type. At end of show tine I came back to get a few more pictures of this one. About 20 MGB Tourer in various models and colors. Had to hunt down a couple of aisles to find them all. One in-process restoration MGB with a nice story, some guy restoring this one for his daughter.
TwoMGB GT and two MG Midget. Then three Austin Healey bug-eye Sprite parked nowhere their sister car MG Midgets,
but they were near two big Healeys, both AH 3000,. The second one is particularly interesting. It was sporting a Kellison bolt-on hardtop with fastback coupe styling. Remove the original boot lid, bolt on the hardtop, and reinstall the boot lid. Nice touch, adding the MkIII GT badge.
Three Triumph Spitfire, one TR4, one TR2, and one TR3. Two Lotus, the red one obviously Elan, but had to check the tag to discover the black one was Emira. For small econo cars there was the Metropolitan and an Anglia. Four Morgan today, three Plus 4 and one Plus 8. And three Sunbeam, one Alpine parked between two Tiger. Eight Triumph TR6.
Three vintage Mini., four modern Mini, at lest four large vintage jaguar. Four Jaguar E-Type, one XK-120, and a couple large vintage saloon, and a long line of more modern Jaguar Saloon.
One honkin' large Carbodies XF4R Saloon, a.k.a. London Taxi. One 1974 Jensen Healey MK II, and one 1971 Triumph Herald. One 1973 Triumph Stag, one 1987 TVR Tasmin Convertible,one fiberglass body Cobra, .
Bring on the Range Rover, vintage, modern, and more modern. A number of modern Jaguar sport bodies, F-type, XR8 nd the like, , and a 2020 McLaren GT. Be careful wondering through the motorcycle class. I don't know about the two on the left. You might recognize the 2017 Triumph Bonneville Bobber, but may never have seen the 1985 Sinclair C5. This was originally advertised as "electrically assisted pedal cycle" (intentionally not called car).
Some vendors in the sun, one half in the shade. Lots of Hot Wheels model cars available, which ties right in to the next set. It's racing time, beginning with the children's downhill Hot Wheels Races.
Then on to the Valve Cover Races. Some of the kids got to participate in this as well, with number of spare cars available for them to chose and run. They were invariably amazed at how big and how heavy these cars were.
Top starting with simultaneous release mechanism. sailing down the ramps, and flying through the electronic timing traps. Each participant got at least one run on the right and one run on the left. Double elimination tournament, so keep running until you lose twice to be eliminated. All jolly good fun.
All good things must come to an end. Three o'clock beginning of awards presentation, right on time, and also finished on time by 4-pm so everyone could hang around to the end.
 For the full set of 70 photos and notes from the car show, see supplimentary photos page
Sunday October 18, 2026:
Most of the day spent processing photos and notes from yesterday's car show, updating the web site.
Monday October 19, 2026:
A little future planning, a few tech questions, lots of nothing to write home about. Wayne got his MGA Coupe home okay after the Saturday car show, now onto replacing rear wheel cylinders, all the rubber stuff, and swapping it over toDOT-5 fluid. Might be a good time to swap in the replacement 3.9:1 differntial while he's at it.
Tuesday October 20, 2026:
Email and planning. Looks like we will be heading northeast this eveening, not a big rush. Hint, 75 miles north by midnight.
Wednesday October 21, 2026:
Up early, first prospective WiFi spot was so cold we didn't survive long enough to order breakfast, so moved on. Found a friendly WiFiI spot in Greenville, Alabama.
Thursday October 22, 2026:
Three stops in Montgomery, AL, all for naught, no WiFi anywhere. Keep moving on to find Loves, McD in Shorter, AL, still in tine for breakfast.
Friday October 23, 2026:
Cross state line for a quick bankATM stop in WestPoint, Georgia, then continue to Hogansville, GA. Stop at Waffle House for lunch, because someone gave us a gift card, long time go, and it was just burning space in my wallet. Then check into Love's/Arby's for WiFi, and start planning a route to avoid expressways around Atlanta, because there is two nmiles of loop expressway closed for construction.. This place is a vfreezer, but we think we knowwhere we're going. --Back on the expressway, 30 miles east to Palmetta, GA exit, thrn mostly due north. We skipped up the west sidewithout touiching Atlantam, landing at nother Loves/McD in Emerson, GA. Unfortunately both of their WiFi were non-functional, but we did find a good spot five miles farther north in Cartersville, GA. Lot of running around tody, but time for dinner,after dark. Yeh, we gave back an hour for time zone change when crossing back across the Chattahoochee River.
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