I’m pleased to say that I went for my first actual drive in the MG that wasn’t a test run. I had intended to clean the MG since it had to spend a night outdoors recently due to work being done on the house. As I had to start it up to move it out I thought it best to give it a full run up to temperature so I set off down the road. I made one small adjustment to the idle speed at a lay-by and tweaked the thermostat for the electric fan and then…went for a drive.

The car was running like a dream and I actually started to enjoy myself working up the gears and placing it accurately on the road. You certainly need to concentrate and each gear change is an effort of coordination although the clutch is very smooth and I didn’t crunch any gears.

It is of course faintly terrifying to be rolling along at 55mph in a car I have largely screwed together (with lots of help and encouragement) myself and invested considerable amounts of my hard earned cash in but I hope my confidence will improve as I gradually increase the distances travelled as I prove it all works consistently.

There is still lots to do including the missing internal trimming but it was satisfying to go for a run on such a lovely evening. On return to home with no problems to report I gave the MG a very careful wash using a clean mitt and very little pressure , having sprinkled it liberally with water first. An equally careful drying off and it was looking gleaming.

On the drive I took some pics at a nearby and well known beauty spot, see below. A lovely feeling of accomplishment. Oh..and on the downhill bits the exhaust popped and crackled (without software…!)…sometimes it’s the little things…