Making cars, is, as you may have surmised, hard. They have so many parts! And all those parts have to fit together just the right way with other parts, and then you have to make sure that the whole thing doesn’t catch on fire or fall apart or slice off people’s earlobes or anything like that. On top of all of that mess, you also have to be sure you meet all of the laws and requirements of the country you’re trying to sell cars in, and that’s even more exhausting. It’s enough to take all of the fun out of building cars, and I suspect this is how British Leyland was feeling in the 1970s, because that would explain the thinking behind this incredible act of phoning it in I’d like to tell you about.
I suspect many of you already have heard about this, but it’s possible there are people out there who have not, so I think it’s worth retelling this story. The cars I want to talk about are the both from MG, the MG Midget and MGB. And, for proper context, it’s important to remember that the most important market for MG was North America, where they sold the majority of their cars; of about 528,000 MGBs sold overall, over 300,000 went to North American markets. That’s a huge chunk.
I think that’s all worth keeping in mind because it helps make the scale of this act of phoning it in even more impressive. The issue has to do with regulations America has for things like headlight and bumper height, which are mandated by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety standards 108 for lighting and 581 for bumpers. These height regulations have changed over the years, and has caused some companies to make some strange alterations to their cars to qualify.
For example, look how goofy the US-market Fiat 500s looked with their tacked-on larger headlamps needed to meet the mandated height requirements:
That was a sort of phoned-in solution, too, but in Fiat’s defense, the US market for the 500 was quite tiny, and it really wouldn’t have made sense to redesign the entire front sheet metal for such a small part of their overall sales. With that in mind, the funny-looking larger headlamp units actually make a good amount of sense.
But let’s get back to MG; in 1974, America made some pretty big changes to their bumper and headlamp standards, mandating newer, much more robust bumpers capable of withstanding a 5 mph impact with minimal damage. The original bumpers on the MG Midget and MGB really weren’t up to the task, being somewhat delicate chrome blades:
Those bumpers wouldn’t cut it. MG had a sort of stopgap bumper with huge rubber blocks on them, nicknamed “Sabrinas” for a British model and actress of the era who, being a mammal, possessed breasts:
These, however evocatively named, were not enough, and by late 1974/early 1975, the rubber-bumper’d MGB and Midgets were born, much to the dismay of MG purists.
Personally, I think everyone who is throwing a fit about the look of these rubber bumpers (they’re really polyurethane over steel, and are quite beefy and heavy, weighing at least 50 pounds per bumper) needs to relax, because all things considered, I think they’re very well designed and integrate with the lines of the car very well. They don’t look like a tacked-on afterthought at all, but rather a seamless development of the basic design. I’ve defended these cars before.
I’m telling you this because it all makes the phoned-in part so much more baffling. Clearly British Leyland took these new bumper regulations seriously. They designed entirely new bumper units that seemed to meet the standards and worked with the cars design. There was only one problem:
They weren’t the right height.
Yes, the bumpers and, it seems, the headlights were about an inch too low to meet the American standards. How this didn’t come up in what must have been the extensive design process for these new bumpers is completely baffling to me, yet somehow, it didn’t. MG needed to get the bumpers and lights higher by about an inch or so.
So how did they do it? Did they redesign the bumper mounts and sheet metal of the fenders to give an extra inch or so of height? Nope. They just jacked the whole damn car up by about an inch.
Of course, this did nothing good for the handling, which was already compromised by the new heavier bumpers and, just to really put a cherry on top of this turd sundae, in 1975 and 1976 they also removed the front anti-roll bar. The result was the center of gravity was higher, the car rolled more in turns, had more weight to move around with an already smog-equipment compromised engine, looked off, and was just about worse in every way.
Oh, unless you backed into a hydrant. Then it was much better.
If MG was selling economy hatchbacks in America, maybe it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But this was a sporty roadster; good handling and fun driving is its whole raison d’etre, that’s why the thing exists at all!
It’s just baffling to me that this company, which not just understood the importance of the American market, but spent considerable time, effort, and money to make these new compliant bumpers, would somehow screw up something as basic as the required height, and then “fix” it with what is likely the absolute least amount of work possible beyond just lying about the height for as long as they could get away with it.
It’s an amazing act of phoning it in, one that deserves to be remembered. I think if you push on the suspension of these MGs, you can almost hear the designers and engineers saying “fuck it, good enough” with every squeak. It’s almost magical.
And there’s something about a 3rd wiper too that was phoned in to cover the percent of the windshield that was required starting in 1969.
Respectfully,
3WiperB
It’s common knowledge to avoid this era of MGB for more that just the rubber bumpers. They should be cheaper to buy, but there’s always a reason for that. In California, don’t buy anything post 1975 that needs to be smogged.
I had one of the last 1974s with chrome bumpers. I just left the Sabrinas on, though it’s easy enough to retrofit the earlier chrome bumperettes. Some people retrofit the early style chrome grill as well.
As the former owner of a ’78 MGB – one of the rubber-bumper years – I do think the revised bumpers do look pretty good despite weighing as much as they do.
The ’71 Challenger had a smaller set of… Sabrinas on the chrome bumper. They weren’t an aesthetic success but they did protect the bumper on at least one occasion, so I guess it’s a wash.
Ah the old metric to imperial convers…oh wait
However, they did a great job of meeting the new regs with the Spitfire.
At least one other British maker did more or less the same thing – federal Lotus Elans were a full inch higher off the ground than their Brit siblings. Way back then I owned a ’64 MGB with chrome bumpers and was appalled when the black bumpers came out. Still think they’re ugly. TR6s got huge protruding rubber blocks at the same time; don’t know about the ride height. And for the record, in ‘Murrica, those things were called ‘Dagmars’ fro essentially the same reason.
MG spelled backwards is GM, so what do you expect LOL
When you consider that the double-nickel speed limit kept everything slow starting in 1974 – and US roads were in terrible shape – nobody was having any fun driving anyway.
Raising the car an inch probably saved a number of exhaust systems from being scraped off the bottom of MGBs.
They were probably starting to swirl around the toilet bowl around that point anyway. I don’t have my British Car industry dates memorized but the whole demise is good reading. Too bad, but a good story nonetheless.
This would have been around the time of the rumour that already rusting sheet steel was being used to press MGB body panels.
Look, if you had expectations of British Leyland in the 1970s even doing things half-assed, you’re giving them too much credit.
Quarter-assed at most. When not on strike. Or going bankrupt.
This is like expecting ‘Standard of the World Cadillac of the 1960s’ in early 1980s General Motors. The parent had well killed the independent spirit by that point.
MG suffered the same fate under BL.