Recently I got the opportunity to travel to one of the most peaceful and idyllic settings I have visited in many years. Not only did the shores of Lake Okareka offer a tranquil landscape, but also some challenging, tightly twisting and narrow roads to test Tony Shelbourne’s wonderfully sorted Toyota twin-cam-powered MGA.

When Tony suggested I pilot the little roadster from his house on the lake’s edge, to the location we had chosen for the photo shoot a few kilometres away, I didn’t need to be asked twice. Stretching the MGA’s legs for the first time was satisfying to say the least. The car felt well balanced, with more than enough power up front to tempt the right foot into pushing harder at every available opportunity.

Driving this car was addictive, and I can understand why Tony was keen for me to get behind the wheel and experience the sheer thrill of driving his MGA — I was tempted to just keep driving it all day.

A passion for MGs

Tony is no stranger to this type of motoring and has been involved with British sports cars, especially MGs, from a very early age. His parents owned a 1930 M-type MG Midget, in which he probably had his first ride. However, the little boat-tailed Midget obviously wasn’t big enough for carting baby gear, as Tony first appeared in the family photo album in a Le Mans Singer. By the time he was three years old the family car was a bright green 1937 1.5-litre, open four-seater MGVA which he remembers well — he was car sick down the side of it on more than one occasion.

Tony first learned to drive in his father’s 1947 TC at the age of 11, and later went on to drive the family VA. He vividly remembers sitting in an MGA in 1956 for the first time in a showroom in Nottingham, but his father eventually bought an Austin-Healey 100/6, with more room for his long legs, and much more luggage room. At 1.9 metres (six feet, 5.5) tall, Tony should have known better than to become enamoured with MGAs!

Whilst a student in Oxford, he well remembers bug-eyed Austin-Healey Sprites and MGA bodies rolling down Iffley Road on transporters. He visited the Abingdon factory once, about 1957, when collecting his father’s rebuilt Healey (after an encounter with a dry stone wall), but never saw his (eventual) hero, Syd Enever, the man who designed the MGA and B, amongst others.

Then followed a long sports car drought, occupied by VWs and a Peugeot 404 station wagon that transported Tony and his family from North Carolina to San Francisco prior to their emigration to New Zealand. The trusty 404 served them here for another 20 years.

The MGA project

The drought was finally broken by a 1965 Lotus Elan, which Tony bought from a farmer’s shed in Lincolnshire whilst on a trip to the UK. Once back in New Zealand, the Lotus was treated to some much needed TLC and restoration work, during which time Tony soon learned all about chopped-strand fibreglass mat and resin.

Then, in early 2003, Tony discovered that Garth Bagnall, of the MG Shop in New Lynn, had an MGA chassis and body tub left over from another restoration. However, it wasn’t for sale until the owner was sure it wouldn’t be needed. A year later, in January 2004, the decision was made to sell the MGA parts, so Tony and Murray Strutton of Vintage Restorations of Te Puke (later Autoform) picked up the body tub, chassis, one rear wing, two doors, as well as an MGB Salisbury rear axle and a complete MGB front suspension, including discs, callipers and steering rack.

This was the beginning. Its very incompleteness fitted Tony’s original concept of a ‘recreated’ MGA, with a strong, rigid chassis and excellent road-holding characteristics. MG, of course, had essayed its own twin-cam version of the MGA, but it only remained in production for a short while from 1958-60, with just over 2000 examples being built. MG’s twin-cam version of the B-series 1588cc engine quickly developed a reputation for burning pistons and oil and it was, perhaps, a far too sophisticated engine for MG’s parent company, BMC, to handle. Today, in New Zealand, you won’t find too many MGA twin-cam engines knocking about and, anyway, Tony’s idea was to update the MGA Twin-Cam with a modern, electronic-fuel-injected motor, five-speed gearbox and a few more mod cons. This was Tony’s vision of a practical everyday sports car, with the MGA’s delightful styling.
Phil Bradshaw’s website on Toyota 4A-GE motors and T50 gearboxes provided Tony with a lot of information, and Murray managed to obtain, ex Japan, a 4A-GE motor and gearbox, plus engine loom and computer from an AE86 Levin, the last of the rear-wheel-drive Corollas.

He also wrecked a couple of AE82 Corollas, initially as a model for the application of the electronic system, and also to acquire a complete wiring loom for the whole car, spare motor, steering wheel and steering column, instruments, indicator stalks and other dash parts which would come in handy along the way.

The mistake of building the car around a surplus roll bar caused major problems when it came time to fit (a rather tall) Tony under the standard MGA hood frame (supplied by Moss Europe). Not having a windscreen at that stage, they were unaware that Tony wasn’t really going to fit inside the snug cockpit as far as headroom was concerned.

Tony’s long legs were another story. Eventually, Tony and Murray ended up constructing the seats around the chassis cross-member to give maximum legroom, and lowered the driver’s side floor for more headroom. The clutch and brake pedals were also custom made specially to increase legroom.

Fitting the parts

Although the MGB front wishbones and Armstrong shocks fitted the MGA chassis mounting points (after facing the shocks outwards rather than inwards), spacers were needed on the ex-Nissan Primera alloy wheels, found on TradeMe. There is also a basic difference in A versus B suspension and steering layout, which Tony learned. For the B, the steering arm is fixed to the king pin assembly a couple of centimetres below the stub axle, whereas in the A, this is at exactly the same level as the stub axle. The B rack’s mounting points are also much wider apart than the A’s, which necessitated attaching new brackets to the chassis. However, mounting the B rack at the same height as the A’s rack had been mounted meant it was too high for the B steering arm, something that took a while to figure out (with Rod Brayshaw and colleague Peter’s help), and there wasn’t room above the chassis cross member to lower the rack. After appropriate modifications, the car now steers and corners as it should.

Cosmetically, Tony always liked green cars, going back to the sick-making MGVA, and this colour was recaptured in modern metallic.

Tony admits he has never liked the dashboard of the A, or the T series, but the early mid-1930 cars usually had wooden dashes, and this is echoed in the solid Tasmanian blackwood (Acacia melanoxyon) dash. The FXGT Corolla instrument cluster, while not particularly elegant, was simple to fit, and functional. There were no bumpers and, as Tony always liked the look of stripped-down MGA racers, he decided to add a front fairing and two XK 120-type over-riders at the back. The grille is an original, repaired MkII version, the last of the As from 1960-62. The rear light clusters are styled after those on the MGA MkII, though not quite, as they are Murray originals.

Fettling the MGA

Installing the 4A-GE on new engine mounts, removing the sump and refitting it with the deep part to the rear, away from the chassis cross member, was all relatively straightforward. The alternator was a tight fit that needed a special mount, and some chopping of bodywork enabled Murray to handle the electrical side of things with relative ease.

Go it certainly did right from the start, though the imported motor had noticeable piston slap which Tony couldn’t tolerate, so the spare AE82 Corolla motor was rebuilt and fitted with the appropriate AE86 rear-wheel drive components. Selecting the correct differential ratios was really important, as these motors like to rev, so Tony copied his FXGT Corolla’s ratios, which give 3400rpm at 100kph. This necessitated a 4.555:1 back axle which was then installed in the banjo-shaped axle off an earlier MGB, the same as used in the A, replacing the Salisbury axle originally fitted (its 3.9:1 ratio meant driving most of the time in third or fourth gear).
Tony had the help of a few friends along the way, and admits that this project would not have been possible without their professional advice and commitment.

Gordon Cromb of Tauranga Quality Upholstery did a fine job on the upholstery and carpets, building the foam for the specially crafted seats, developing them to offer Tony and his passenger full support. Rod Brayshaw of the MG Car Company in Katikati supplied Tony with new and used parts, together with some sound advice along the way.

Neville Lucas of the new MG Shop in Mt Maunganui provided parts, sourced from Moss Europe, including the much-needed 4.555:1 back axle.

Murray Strutton, of Autoform in Papamoa, was the man who meticulously managed this project from the start, and is the brilliant craftsman who has re-created this MGA to produce something which Tony believes to be a good deal better than the mass-produced original. Four years after starting the project, Tony now has a nicely-sorted MGA with a Toyota twin-cam engine which he believes Syd Enever would have loved to have put into his everyman’s sports car — remembering that MG, during this period, used many proprietary parts in their cars.

It is strange how these things sort of connect; rumour has it that Lotus had some hand in the design of the 4A-GE motor which, of course, went into the Toyota MR2. And, that Japanese mid-engined sports car has always been rumoured to have been designed by Lotus. Whether that is true or not, Mazda’s MX-5 was spiritually descended from the Lotus Elan.

It all seems to fit together and, in doing so, proves that the much-maligned British motor industry evidently had brilliant designers; designers who could produce cars with a lasting influence. And Syd Enever was one of the best.

Words: Ashley Webb Photos: Adam Croy