John Dean

Editor - Don’t feel so guilty. Buy MGE paper and, at a discounted rate, digital issues at: MGE have just spent more than I’d planned to on a new Hi-Fi. I could talk about the specifications, how it really is worth the little extra above my original budget and how it will really not be so expensive spread across the years of its life. But most of us here will already have a deep understanding of justifying extravagant purchases. Many people would draw the line for a car to become an extravagance as the point where its purpose becomes sport not just simple transport. The argument is, of course, that we don’t need these things really. That doesn’t sound good for us, does it? Admittedly, I don’t really need the crisp mid-ranges I now have in my living room either. However, the pages of this issue are alive with the reasons why an MG might be exactly what we all need, if we’re willing to work with the meaning of the word a little. During the lunchbreak in our shoot of the headline Z-car feature for this month, one of the owners said to me: “dinosaur juice and dead animals, that’s all I need”. And as we stood with the cars ticking cool, munching on our sausage rolls, nothing seemed more appropriate. Days out like these were exactly what we needed, especially after the year we’ve all had. Even if we’re reminded more than ever to curtail our excesses, particularly cars and meat. If it weren’t cars? Well it would be something else, a point made by Alan behind the wheel of his Magnette earlier on in this issue. Whether it’s golf, riding horses, or weekends away, there’s a hobby out there waiting to consume our time and money. We’re all trained to read that as a bad thing, as time and money lost, but it’s actually a measure of how valuable are the things we spend it on. Is it lost if we spend it on what we enjoy? We get a similar feeling from Malcolm’s rebuilding of his Blue Streak Special at the back of this issue. There are years of work behind the project, lots of money too, despite his best efforts to suppress the spending, but the sense of reward for it all seems to overwhelm the costs. He’s already done 2000 kilometres with it and it sounds like every one was brilliant fun. One final example to mention is our first feature in this issue. The story of Ken and Ella’s trip down to Somerset in 1957 shows how long a good memory can last, how it can be worth the time and money... and hassle. So I hope that you too are able to forgive yourselves a little extravagance here or there. Sometimes you need to turn the volume up on life. Enjoy the issue. Yes I do need this stainless steel exhaust. It amplifies my MG fun.