Junkyard Find: 1979 MG MGB

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

MGB s continue to show up in self-service wrecking yards, with another rubber-bumper Malaise Era example today. In my junkyard expeditions prior to today, I’ve photographed this ’67, this ’71, this ’75, this ’77, this ’77, this ’79, and this ’79 with a Toyota 20R swap, and now we’ve got today’s Denver ’79.

This car appears to have an old Volvo key, attached to a 20-year-old Colorado State Patrol keychain, in the ignition. Knowing British Leyland quality as I do, it’s likely that any key (or key-like object) will work the ignition on a late-70s MGB, or perhaps Volvo key blanks are similar to BL blanks of this era.

The BMC B engine went into a jillion types of vehicles during its 1950s-1980s production run, from the Massey-Harris Combine Harvester to the Nash Metropolitan to the Leyland Sherpa. Neither powerful nor smooth, but fairly sturdy.

This car appears to have been under restoration at some point, but that was a long time ago.

The problem with convertible projects like this is that their interiors get trashed quickly during outdoor storage, especially in harsh climates like Colorado’s.

It’s not rusty, but the black-bumper MGBs are insufficiently prized to be worth restoring when they get this battered.

Here are the happy workers who crafted this classic sports car.

Meanwhile, in London…






Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • MRF 95 T-Bird MRF 95 T-Bird on Dec 01, 2015

    The wire basket wheels on this car probably Keystone or American Racing are way out of place on this. Back when they were popular you would always see them with missing baskets.

  • Spreadsheet monkey Spreadsheet monkey on Dec 01, 2015

    Attention Americans - that YouTube clip of the striking British Leyland workers is almost 40 years old. Please do not think that is representative of Britain today!

    • RideHeight RideHeight on Dec 01, 2015

      Not to worry. That's easily discerned from the atrocious video quality and we know nobody sports sideburns like that anymore. Well, unless they're extras in an Inspector Gently episode.

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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