Scroll to reply #11 and you will see two photos of a line-up of M.G.s in my Alexandria, Virginia driveway. The black car, second from the right in both photos is the subject of what appears below.
In 1979 I acquired a 1933 M.G. L1 Magna Salonette (that's a mouthful for such a small car!) from a fellow M.G. Car Club Washington DC Centre member. A native of Asbury Park, NJ, he had owned the car, chassis number L0565, for over a decade and used it as daily transportation while attending undergraduate classes in the New York City area. He dated for a time an unknown young folksinger he met at a coffee house up the road in Long Branch. His M.G. was ideal for running her up to Greenwich Village for weekend gigs, as the back seat was big enough for her guitars. Her name was Melanie (yes, THAT Melanie, who just passed away last month) and this was long before she became famous for her songs "Beautiful People" and "Brand New Key" or performing at Woodstock.
Those familiar with pre-War overhead cam M.G.s will know that their thermosyphon cooling systems relied exclusively on forward motion to force air through the radiator - there was no cooling fan. The six-cylinder M.G. Magnas and Magnettes had a "pump-assisted thermosyphon system," while the far more numerous four-cylinder M.G. Midgets relied on convection only to circulate the coolant, although the water pump from a Magna or Magnette could be fitted to some of the later engines.
Driving the Salonette in stop-and-go traffic on hot New Jersey summer days resulted in overheating and then a seized engine just before he was due to leave for graduate school in California. The car was laid up in the carport of his parents' home a block from the Asbury Park beachfront, where over the next decade salt air and humidity did a number on the coachwork. After grad school he ultimately settled in Arlington, Virginia. His parents were selling the family home and the old M.G. had to get out of the carport. Devising an A-frame towbar and using his Honda N600 as a tow vehicle, he dragged it home from New Jersey.
I was the only Washington D.C. area M.G. Club member who had a pre-war car, so seemed a prime candidate to take it off his hands. Soon thereafter I sold my '34 PA four-seater to finance the beginnings of what became a 25-year restoration project.
In corresponding with pre-war M.G. spare parts suppliers in the U.K. I was soon made aware of the rarity of my L1 Magna Salonette. Only 97 of these two-door, four passenger saloons were produced. Compared with the far sportier L1 open four-seat tourer and L2 two-seat sports car, it was an unloved model with a fragile body. When they reached the end of their useful lives, many a Salonette body was thrown away and the light chassis and powerful 1100cc OHC six-cylinder engine became the basis for many an M.G. racing special. Naturally aspirated via dual S.U. carbs, these engines put out a healthy 55 HP. With a crank driven supercharger fitted, running on the racing fuels available in the 1930's, these engines developed up to 140 HP! To put this in perspective the Ford 3.6 liter flat-head V8 was rated at 65 HP. Modified versions could put out as much as 100 HP in period.
One correspondent told me that he had only seen three or four Salonettes in the thirty years he had been in the M.G. spares business; another had only seen one but knew of another that had disappeared some years back and was delighted to discover that it might have now reappeared on the other side of the pond. It was likely that I had the only L1 Salonette in the Western Hemisphere.
News of the rarity of my M.G. made me even more determined to embark on my restoration odyssey. As funds permitted a Greek coachbuilder north of Baltimore recreated the wood-framed aluminum-skinned body, using the disintegrating original as a pattern. I paid him when I could and he worked on it when he received fresh funding, so it took more than a dozen years to complete. Then he started on the chassis, and I found a machine shop willing to take on disassembling and machining the seized engine. We couldn't afford it but one doesn't count the cost of a labor of love.
More than two decades and tens of thousands of dollars after embarking on the restoration I had a steerable rolling chassis with an assembled engine and transmission in place, a pile of spare parts, and a spouse voicing a concern that, if I continued, this project was going to end up costing significantly more than what we paid for our house. I reluctantly spread the word in the Pre-War M.G. community that my Salonette was for sale.
It took a while but eventually in fall of 2003 I was contacted by a pre-war M.G. aficionado in Japan, who said he had been searching for an F or L Salonette and wanted to know more about it. After months of discussion and sending photos of all the work, a deal was done. In 2004, twenty-five years to the month after I first acquired my M.G. Magna, L0565 was in a container on a ship heading for Kobe, Japan. The two photos in reply #11 were taken the day I loaded the Salonette on my trailer for transport to a warehouse in Baltimore to be containerized and shipped to Japan.
Two years later he sent me a couple of photos of the completed project. I did not recognize anything in the photos other than the radiator shell and steering wheel. At the urging of a paying client, he had tossed the Salonette body and full flowing fenders and created a boat-tailed, cycle-fendered, supercharged racing special!
To say I was saddened beyond words would be a vast understatement. Sleepless nights have visited me from time to time over the last nearly twenty years when I am reminded of the fate that befell a rare car that I spent nearly twenty-five years trying to resurrect.
Now comes the improbable part of the story:
During 2023 there were numerous events held around the world commemorating the 100th anniversary of the M.G. marque. A member of the New England M.G. "T" Register traveled to the U.K. to attend an M.G. 100 event at Silverstone Circuit and wrote a report highlighting what he thought were the most significant or unusual among a special time-line of 100 M.G.s on display. This article, complete with photos, was published in the NEMGTR bi-monthly journal "The Sacred Octagon" (Volume 61, Number 5 October 2023, pages 16-19). There was a photo of each subject car, but one car merited two photos: A duo-green L1 Magna Salonette! Naturally I skipped through the article to read the description of that car first. Its owner had acquired chassis number L0297, originally built as a Salonette, as a rolling chassis basket case fitted with the remnants of "bitsa" open four-seat body.
Imagine my utter shock when I next read that in 2005 he was able to begin to return the car to its original specification after sourcing complete Salonette bodywork - from Japan! I was looking at my old Salonette, completely restored, but on a different chassis by a different owner! The description concluded, "It is believed to be one of only two remaining Salonettes worldwide."
Skipping ahead, when a container arrives in New York next month and L0297 is loaded on my trailer and brought home, my Salonette body will have completed its circumnavigation of the globe.
The photo group below shows L0565 as it appeared when it arrived in Kobe, Japan in 2004 and L0297 after its restoration was completed using the body, fenders, bonnet (hood) panels, seats and interior wood trim sourced from Japan. The other photo shows the only two L1 Magna Salonettes known to exist worldwide side by side at a pre-covid international M.G. meeting in the U.K. The blue car lives in Belgium.
