At 10:15 AM 2/3/06, Bo Giersing wrote:
>"Motor Assemblies in South Africa built the 20 last Twin Cams during 1961, from CKD kits which were mostly all jumbled - 4 '1600' style roadsters, 8 '1600' style coupes and 8 '1500' style roadsters. The specifications were all mixed up and mostly not as recorded at Abingdon. These cars were mostly fitted with very late engines, all were fitted with additional aluminium plates on the bulkhead, either stamped '8.3 pistons fitted' or '1750 cc Exp AEH ???, gasket No AEH ???' (I'll try to find the photos). It is believed that 4 of the engines were 1762cc. Rodney Green has kept one of the original pistons marked Mowog. I have confirmed at least 3 engines, which still exist - these are some of the very last engines built.
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>Engine No 2260 - fitted to YDH5 2016, built in August 1961, owned by Chris Hofmeyer, it is in his garage, and his car is running on an MGB.
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>Engine No 2261 - fitted to YMH5 2413, known as 'Green Mamba', built March 1961, owned by Gordon Horsfield, managing director of main dealers McCarthy, road tested in 1961 at 135 mph. I owned this car for a while, but it was running on an MGB unit. The car was sold to Rodney Green and then to Dennis Bron in Holland a few years ago, together with the engine 2261, and was raced very successfully at Silverstone in 2005
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>Engine No 2262 - fitted to YD2 2598, built in August 1961, initially owned by John Sully, managing director of Motor Assemblies, original colour metallic blue (!), supposedly the last Twin Cam built, written off, and I am in the process of resurrecting it. The engine went to YDH5 1827, raced by John Gommershall and Clive Alexander and later bought by Alan Green, and the engine is still in the car.
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>I have inspected engine block 2261, and could find no difference between that and the 'standard' block. The block codes are recorded on our site.
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>From magazine articles at the time, it appears that the 1762cc engines were modified by Motor Assemblies with a kit and specs supplied by Abingdon - hence the additional alu plate - I will try to post a photo of this.
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>Be interesting to know how many other cars received this treatment, the engine numbers, and when it was done. I suppose for a real enthusiast, the later 8.3 engines were not very exciting, hence a demand for something hotter."

Addendum:
On Wed, 7 Nov 2007, Bo Giersing wrote:
>"It is worth noting that all these cars were built in mid 1961, more than a year after Twin Cam production ceased at Abingdon, and at a time when the SA factory had 20 cars in basic kit form, for which there was no demand - Abingdon must have passed the message to get rid of these cars, the MGA is soon being discontinued. Many Twin cams have since been converted to 1762 cc, including Rodney's extensively and successfully raced YD2 2597, and YD2 2600, which was also with me some years ago - a very fast car built by Roger Pearce, twin 40 webers etc. The question is - how many other cars were converted to 1762 cc using factory kits? (besides SRX 210 and Bobby Olthoff's YDH5 929, converted later at Abingdon). Incidentally, I have YDH5 928 in my garage, used on weekends, showing evidence of competition use (most engine nuts and bolts wired, bolted and removable LHS engine mount, CRG), but no specific competition records."