The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE
South Alabama British Car Festival, Fairhope, AL - (October 17, 2026)
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Saturday October 17, 2026:
Show day. Up early, call to Wayne Stambaugh,who had a head start on on us. Check out of hotel, into Mc'd for breakfast, then head back into town for the car show. Back at the Fairhope United Methodist Church before 11-am, checking in , getting parked, being joined a few minutes later by Wayne with his red MGA Coupe with patched up brakes. Relax and enjoy the South Alabama British Car Festival. Beautiful day. going to top out bout 70dF with full sun, and quite a lot of shade trees when you don't want to be cooked. Official count was 146 cars registered, 138 on the show field. Time for chat and taking pictures. Start with my roadster and Wayne's coupe. This is the first time he has been to car show where he has one of his own cars in the show. Good turn out of 8 MGA today, followed by one each MG TF, TD, TC.
These on left look like two more MG TD, but they might be older. For sure the third one is a 1930 MG M-Type. At end of show tine I came back to get a few more pictures of this one.
About 20 MGB Tourer in various models and colors. Had to hunt down a couple of aisles to find them all.
One in-process restoration MGB with a nice story, some guy restoring this one for his daughter.
TwoMGB GT and two MG Midget. Then three Austin Healey bug-eye Sprite parked nowhere their sister car MG Midgets,
but they were near two big Healeys, both AH 3000,. The second one is particularly interesting. It was sporting a Kellison bolt-on hardtop with fastback coupe styling. Remove the original boot lid, bolt on the hardtop, and reinstall the boot lid. Nice touch, adding the MkIII GT badge.
Three Triumph Spitfire, one TR4, one TR2, and one TR3. Two Lotus, the red one obviously Elan, but had to check the tag to discover the black one was Emira.
For small econo cars there was the Metropolitan and an Anglia. Four Morgan today, three Plus 4 and one Plus 8. And three Sunbeam, one Alpine parked between two Tiger.
Eight Triumph TR6.
Three vintage Mini., four modern Mini, at lest four large vintage jaguar.
Four Jaguar E-Type, one XK-120, and a couple large vintage saloon, and a long line of more modern Jaguar Saloon.
One honkin' large Carbodies XF4R Saloon, a.k.a. London Taxi. One 1974 Jensen Healey MK II, and one 1971 Triumph Herald.
One 1973 Triumph Stag, one 1987 TVR Tasmin Convertible,one fiberglass body Cobra, .
Bring on the Range Rover, vintage, modern, and more modern.
A number of modern Jaguar sport bodies, F-type, XR8 nd the like, , and a 2020 McLaren GT.
Be careful wondering through the motorcycle class. I don't know about the two on the left. You might recognize the 2017 Triumph Bonneville Bobber, but may never have seen the 1985 Sinclair C5. This was originally advertised as "electrically assisted pedal cycle" (intentionally not called car).
Some vendors in the sun, one half in the shade. Lots of Hot Wheels model cars available, which ties right in to the next set.
It's racing time, beginning with the children's downhill Hot Wheels Races.
Then on to the Valve Cover Races. Some of the kids got to participate in this as well, with number of spare cars available for them to chose and run. They were invariably amazed at how big and how heavy these cars were.
Top starting with simultaneous release mechanism. sailing down the ramps, and flying through the electronic timing traps.
Each participant got at least one run on the right and one run on the left. Double elimination tournament, so keep running until you lose twice to be eliminated. All jolly good fun.
All good things must come to an end. Three o'clock beginning of awards presentation, right on time, and also finished on time by 4-pm so everyone could hang around to the end.
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