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Barney the MGA Guru


This is an e-mail I received from a very interesting British Car owner. He and his son have been traveling the country in their MGA and have visited the lower 48 states. Check out his e-mail below. I'm also including a link to his website and I have invited him to our Pistons & Pints get together this month.

This from Barney:

Bill, I own one 1958 MGA with almost half a million miles on it. I have owned this one since 1977. As of early 2014 it is the only car I own. I don't necessarily want to "join" your club as a regular member. I would like to attend at least one club meeting or other club activity. I live in USA at large, having given up the house in Illinois in early 2014 (so we don't have to go back), now traveling the country around. If home is where you hang your hat, I hang my hat in my MGA, and have traveled 83,000 miles in 48 states in a little over 2 years. So I am home in Virgina today, and for another two weeks at least. I get "home" here occasionally. I know a lot of people in Virginia by now, but I don't know if I know any of your club members (because I don't know who are your members, yet). Now for the essay question, a little about myself: My life is an open book, if you visit http://MGAguru.com and read the "Tales" section. I will try to condense it. I bought an MGA in 1968 (when I was 19), had three in one year, gaveit up when I got married, bought my current MGA in 1997, restored it and put is back on the road in1986. Since then I have put another 337,000 miles on it, and not slowing down any time soon. My web site (noted above) has over 3000 web pages of technical information for MGs (much ado about British cars in general), and it gets something like 2800 visitors daily from all over the world. A couple years ago I thought I needed a longer road trip, ditched the house and hit the road, along with my son (now 26). In the past 2-yr and 2-mo we have hit all 48 states and are in process of making a second lap around the country. Similar to the Blues Brothers, I think, we may be "on a mission from god". The mission is over when all MGs are back on the road. As such, we are visiting every MG and all-British car club in the country, meeting the members to see who may need help with their car (and not just MGs). We systematically visit everyone who may put their hand up (and I don't think we have missed anyone yet). We have tinkered with more the 200 vintage cars in the past two years. The purpose is to run tech sessions to teach people how to fix their own cars, but the cars also get fixed in the process. Wherever we travel, I am constantly looking at the club web sites for information on club activities, so we can make an appointment to visit the club sometime (to meet the members). I am looking for information on club events, meetings, tech sessions, drives, social events, or whatever. I look first for a club calendar or list of upcoming events. We put these events on our travel map (for all clubs), then connect the dots in chronological order to try to get to at least one event for every club. This commonly results in us driving up to 1000 miles per week for a few weeks within the borders of one or two states. We are currently in process of doing Virginia (for the second time), and will be in Virginia at least through the 17th. This is why I make the inquiry. While checking every nook and cranny on your website, I have yet to make contact with anyone in the club (before this note). We missed you all two years ago, and are being more dilligent this time around trying to cover all the bases. I don't know what may be in the Members secton of your web site, but thought it might have moe information about upcoming activities, or maybe contact information (like a current newsletter perhaps). There is another motive. I am in process of creating a links list for every known vendor in the country who might work on British cars, reuild component parts, or supply parts for repair of restoration. I regularly look at the club web sites to see if there may be a list of local vendors. Sometimes the clubs reserve certain kinds of information for members only. Since I didn't see such a list elsewhere on the web site, thought it might be worth a peek into the Members section. Thats about it. The important issue is trying to find out if the club (or any individual members) are doing anything in the next couple of weeks while we are still in the area. Otherwise, follow our follies at http://MGAguru.com/mobile

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