“I love driving this car!” shouted Tony Cox as his 1962 MGA MK2 zipped along a flat stretch of 36th Avenue in Langley.

Wind funneled around the two-seat car’s windshield and whirled in the 70-year-old Langley resident’s face as he shifted the convertible sports car into fourth gear.

From the passenger’s seat, there was an illusion that Cox was driving as much as 30 km/h faster than he was, when in actuality the MG was travelling five km/h under the speed limit – that’s the affect of sitting a foot above asphalt.

Cox has experienced countless hours of this sensation, a fair bit of it condensed into a 7,500-mile (12,000-kilometre) trip from B.C.’s south coast to Ottawa last summer as part of the Cruise to the Capital, a NAMGAR regional event organized by the Canadian Classic MG Club.

When Cox purchased the car in 2003, it was literally a shell of what it is today.

He restored it over a two-year period, and it was licensed for the road in mid-summer 2005.

“I’ve known this car since 1972,” Cox said.

When he lived in Vancouver, Cox belonged to the Kitsilano Sailing Club. A fellow member owned the car and “drove it into the ground,” Cox said.

By 1996, the car finally stopped running and a friend of Cox’s in Aldergrove bought the car. The car sat stagnant in a garage until 2003.

Through the years, Cox was persistent, “bugging” his friend to sell the car to him.

He finally got his wish.

“Finally, out of the blue, he sold it [to me],” Cox said.

The car needed a full restoration.

“I took it all apart, into a million pieces and then refurbished everything and put it back together,” said Cox, a self-described “backyard mechanic” who many years ago worked as a motorcycle mechanic.

As a “rule of thumb,” Cox said, this type of car restoration takes between 800 and 1,000 hours of labour “if you do the work yourself.”

Cox rebuilt the engine and transmission and the original interior was discarded and replaced, with a Langley company, Happy Ho’s Upholstery Ltd., replacing the seats for him.  

Since the restoration Cox has put more than 43,000 kilometres on the vehicle.

The biggest chunk of those kilometres were eaten up during his 10-day trek to the Nation’s Capital.

He joined a convoy of six other cars – three MGAs and four MGBs – that left last June 15 with a final destination being the MG national gathering in Ottawa.

“The weather was great,” Cox recalled. “I made a comment to somebody after we got to Ottawa that I’d forgotten how big Canada was, and especially from the [driver’s] seat of a two-seater sports car when you’re buzzing across the Prairies.”

En route, he made a stop in Kelowna where he picked up a friend, before they continued through western Canada, as well as North Dakota and Michigan, before arriving at the conference.

They covered roughly 480 kilometres each day during their journey.

“We weren’t pushing very hard and we did some sightseeing along the way,” he said.

Driving the car brings Cox back to his younger days. The first car he bought as an 18-year-old living in Essex, England, was an MG Midget. Over the years Cox owned “maybe seven or eight” British cars, including a Triumph TR3, but mainly MGs.

“I’m an MG guy,” Cox said.

The MG he’s owned since 2003 is considered to be, “in the MG fraternity, the last proper sports car they made.”

“This is still like the sort of thing you’d expect an RAF [Royal Air Force] pilot in England to be driving, right?” Cox said.

This is Cox’s only classic car, and he’s driving it to the Langley Area Mostly British Motoring Club’s annual St. George’s Show on Sunday, April 26, on the grounds of the Fort Langley Community Hall.

The event will also celebrate the 60th anniversary of the MGA model.

Regarding his own MG, Cox, who has been a LAMB member for the past five years, said, “It’s not perfect, but it’s a driver’s car.”

LAMB’s 10th annual St. George’s British Motoring Show will feature plenty of British vehicles, a silent auction, high tea, British regalia, and music from bygone years.

Membership to LAMB is open to all owners, or enthusiasts, of new, classic, and vintage British vehicles.

Visit www.lambscarclub.com.

Langley Advance