Keystone  Region  MG  Club                                          On  the  web  at:    Keystonemg.com  

       MG  Gazette    Newsletter,  Volume  24,  Issue  1,  January  2015  

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Steering    Column    Greetings All! The annual banquet for the club and the BCCLV has come and gone on Saturday Jan. 17th and a great time was had by all, some maybe more than others....hic! We had a new treat this year with the addition of a new member, Brad Pryor, who serenaded the group on his guitar with a little ditty about Lucas, The Prince of Darkness. That wasn't the actual name of it but that's what it was about and a good tune it was too! The festivities included a great buffet and then Charles de Bourbon treated us to "The Year in Review" with his now famous video, of the past year. It seems that each year they get better and better, and where he gets these film shorts from is a mystery - some are rare. Following the films we were treated to the gift giving or misgivings might be the better words, if your third in line for that special gift, fine, if not, well there is always next year! All in all it was a fine dinner and get together with friends and we owe it all to Ken and Cindy Beck for their arranging it and also Kim and Charles de Bourbon for the background work including the program and the dinner voting. The new year will have it's first meeting, February 17th at the Prime restaurant again - it seems to be located fairly central for most people. If there are any changes or up-dates to club functions I'll get out an email to you all. Cheers!

Dick

Dues  are  DUE    

A  notice  was  postal  mailed  out  to  members  requesting  their  2015  Dues.      If  you  have  not  mailed  your’s  in  yet,  please  do  so  soon.    Any  questions  about  your  dues,  please  contact  Bill  Page  at  610-­‐866-­‐8626    

Thank  you!  

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Hello Darkness My Old Friend At our “Holiday Party” this January, new MG club member Brad Pryor played his guitar and sang the song below to the tune of Paul Simon’s “Sounds of Silence”. The words came from a Moss Motors publication. Some people requested a copy of the words, so here it is! Enjoy!

• Hello darkness my old friend; I’ve come to sit in you again, • Because a wire softly loosening, • Left its place while I was cruising; • And my vision, that was guided by its light, • Gave way to night; thanks to the Scourge of Lucas. • So many nights I’ve worked ‘til dawn; • Trying to find what went wrong, • ‘Neath the halo of a street lamp; • I’ve jiggled wires ‘til my fingers cramp, • And my arms are scarred from the sparks, that split the air, • And singed my hair; thanks to the Scourge of Lucas. • And in the sparking light I saw; 10,000 MGs maybe more, • Engines cranking without starting, • Switches clicking without switching; • People starting drives that ended in a tow, • And dreams laid low; thanks to the Scourge of Lucas. • Fools say that I do not know; how to fix a dynamo, • Under the dash I can’t quite reach you; • Despite my cursing that I’ll teach you, • But my words, like burned out light bulbs fell, • Into the hell; thanks to the Scourge of Lucas. • And the experts bowed and prayed; to the manuals they made, • And the manuals gave dire warning, • About the hazards of most everything; • But the words of those prophets gave not a single clue • What I could do, to end the Scourge of Lucas.

 

NOTICE Monthly Meetings

Resume on February 17th At the Prime Steak House

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MGs - Life Journey Life is like a journey with an MG With gas stations along the way ... With changes of routes... with breakdowns and repairs ... and with some rough roads with occasional bumps!

- At birth we got our first ride in the MG with our parents, and we believed we would always travel together in our MG.

- However, at some restoration shop our parents will depart from the MG, leaving us to journey anew alone with it.

- As time goes by, other people will share a ride in our MG and they will be significant i.e. - our siblings, friends, children, and our loves.

- Many will step out roadside and leave a permanent vacuum in our lives. And others will go so unnoticed that we don't realize their presences until they have vacated their seats! Those who have fixed our MGs, towed our MGs, cursed our MGs, ...

- Our MG rides will be full of joy, sorrow, fantasy, expectations, hellos, goodbyes, and farewells.

- Success consists of fostering a good relationship with all its passengers over the years ...requiring that we give the best of ourselves.

- The mystery to everyone is this: We do not know at which turn our MG may return to dust and we ourselves will have our last sojourn in it. So, we must live in the best way we can - love, live, give, forgive, and offer the best of who we are.

 

Carlisle Events & the Philadelphia Auto Show Join Carlisle Events and the Philadelphia Auto Show for the biggest automotive gathering on the east coast! The Philly Auto Show starts January 31 and runs through February 8. During that time, not only will you see some of the coolest cars, trucks and technology coming onto the market, you'll see a nearly 50 car display backed by Carlisle Events. The Carlisle display is called the Philly FaceOff and pits cars from across the pond vs. those made in the U.S.A. We have some cool prizes available too, so come to the show and vote to win!  

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Hello Keystone MG Club, I am a new member of the Keystone Region MG Club this year. My Name is Tony Rizzello and I reside in Holland Township, New Jersey with my wife Diane. I have been a gear head since I was sixteen, when I bought my first car, a very used 1949 Ford flat head six in 1966. Later that year, I bought my first MG, a white 1959 MGA. That's when I fell in love with British cars. In those successive years I bought, rebuilt, and sold a '61 MGA in addition to the '59, two Triumph TR3's '60 and '61, and finally a '59 Austin Healy Bug-eye Sprite. My last MG was a brand new British Racing Green 1968 MGB GT. I kept that car until 1973 when I was forced to sell it, because after getting married, it just didn't fit with the needs of a new family. Then the years of sedans, station wagons, and SUV's began. In those following years, I kept my mechanical skills up by maintaining and repairing my own cars. I just never returned to those beloved British two-seater cars. However during those years, I did keep that love alive by buying four-seater convertibles from time to time. Something about the feel of the open road and the sky above. While a lot of fast cars and trucks have come and gone over the years, this past November, I bought a 1955 MG "TF 1500". I purchased the car over the internet. The serial numbers matched with the MG production records. And I was informed of the car's ownership history since production through copies of past registrations and titles. So I felt comfortable the car was as advertised. When the car arrived, it turned out to be in worse shape than I had been lead to believe (both in pictures and verbally). I did know the car was not completely original as the dash panel and center instrument had been changed, but I didn't care because I wanted the car to be a day trip, "fun to drive" vehicle. I wasn't interested in a trophy car. I wanted a driving car. After going over the car myself, I realized that I had forgotten more than I had remembered about MG's. There was no way I had the skills needed to make this car road worthy in time for spring. Thus I turned to a professional restorer, and at this writing, all the mechanical systems are being rebuilt to either new or original specs. In addition I am having the interior restored. I am holding off on the chrome and paint until I see how well I like how the car handles after these restorations. Plus I want to see how well the car performs around the Delaware, Lehigh, and Hudson Valleys before I invest anymore. There are more stories I can share about my car experiences, like the time my '59 MG lost a front wheel and flipped over coming to rest in a corn field. Needless to say I was late for school that day. And I thank God the previous owner had installed seat belts. But I think I'll save these stories for future Gazette's. In the meantime, Diane and I are looking forward to being members of the Keystone Region MG Club. We love taking day trips so please keep us in mind whenever the club goes for a drive - starting in the spring of course. Best regards, Tony Rizzello    

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Updating YOUR Club Membership If anything concerning your club membership changes, or if you have any questions about your membership, it is up to you to contact the responsible person in the club to update, or correct your information. Such as:

• Change in e-mail address • Change in postal address • Leaving the club for some reason (i.e. retire to Florida) • You are not receiving Newsletters and bulletins

Please contact: Bill Page at 610-866-8626, e-mail: FrontPage@rcn.com

New Member – Brad Pryor After I got out of high school I worked for several years in jobs getting dirty and working hard. Then I went to college nights and went to work for Prudential Ins as a computer operator. After working at International Paper I went to Nabisco and got promoted to systems programmer. I continued in that position for the next 32 years through several companies.

In 2010 I was retired from Infocrossing in Leonia NJ and moved to Marshalls Creek in January 2014. I had a four bedroom in Chester that my wife got in the divorce. I have a son in Florida and a daughter in Maryland. I bought my 1951 MG through eBay in 2008 but didn't start work on it until I retired. I fly model airplanes and play my guitar around. I have a Cessna 150 and soloed December 2011.

 

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First-ever Packard leaves Lehigh University for first preservation work in 85 years

Though it has rested in a glass case in Lehigh University’s engineering building for the last 85 years, Old Number One—the vehicle considered to be the very first Packard ever built—hasn’t exactly sat idle that whole time. Students over the years got to take it on jaunts around town, and it seems every time some dignitary came by, Lehigh officials would pull it out for a photo op. With Lehigh installing a new permanent enclosure for it, however, Old Number One’s cruising days may very well have come to an end.

No tombstone grille adorns the front of Old Number One, and technically it’s not even a Packard—it was built as an Ohio Model A four years before the automotive division of the New York and Ohio Company in Warren, Ohio, changed its name to Packard—but Packard enthusiasts and historians embrace it as one of their own nonetheless. James Ward Packard, his brother, William Doud Packard, and two former Winton employees, George Weiss and William Hatcher, built the car in 1899 as the first of five Model A’s, conceived after James Ward Packard took his troublesome Winton back to the factory in Cleveland one too many times with suggestions for improvements.

Completed on November 6, 1899, the Model A featured a number of innovations, including a pedal for throttle control, automatic spark advance, a float-feed carburetor and a recirculating water pump for the cooling system. It still remained rather primitive in other aspects, however, with a tiller steering system, a total-loss oiling system, a buggy-type body built by carriage-maker Morgan and Williams, and a 9 horsepower single-cylinder suction-intake engine driving through a four-speed planetary transmission and chain drive to the rear axle. Though little information seems to exist on Old Number One from the first 30 years of its existence—James Ward Packard reportedly drove it as his everyday vehicle, and it posed for plenty of photos in the early years of what would become the Packard Motor Car Company—Chris Larkin of Lehigh’s engineering school said it ended up sitting outside of Packard’s Detroit plant after the company moved there in 1903. Not until late 1929 did Packard officials seem to take an interest in it again, refurbishing it for its donation to the university in November of that year.

James Ward Packard, an 1884 graduate of Lehigh University, made it a point to give back to his alma mater, and before his 1928 death, donated $1.2 million for an entirely new laboratory to house the university’s engineering school. So as not to forget who made that possible, the school installed Old Number One in the building’s lobby. “It’s very emblematic for our dyed-in-the-wool alumni and supporters,” Larkin said. “It’s what makes Lehigh special to them, so there’s a whole lot of interest in that community to see that the car’s treated properly.” In addition to the student voyages (supervised, and used as rewards for particularly high-level accomplishments) and the photo ops, Old Number One also ventured out for Packard’s centennial celebrations in 1999 and again to a show in 2004..

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(Packard – Continued) The engineering college recently decided to renovate that lobby, a project that included devoting more space to Old Number One and a new, larger display case for it. Because it still dripped a little oil here and there—and because the new display case included LED and fiber optic lighting aimed at the underside of Old Number One—college officials decided it was time to clean up and preserve the car. “It wasn’t in pristine condition back when it was donated, but Packard had clearly done some work to bring the car back to life then,” Larkin said. Since then, it’s sat under light bulbs that threw off plenty of heat and has started to look forlorn, Larkin said.

So, they handed it over last month to B.R. Howard, a central Pennsylvania firm that specializes in conservation and preservation. Brian Howard said that removing the body from the chassis has revealed “a more interesting history than perhaps Lehigh even knows. When it was last run, it was ridden hard and put away wet.” He described flaking paint and deteriorating leather fenders and dash, along with some touch-up repairs done with black spray paint and some repairs using plastic strapping and staples where the body met the frame. “Right now, we’re taking a couple of cross-sections to see if there’s any evidence of an earlier finish, and it looks like it may have been a burgundy red at one point,” Howard said. “What we see now—no striping, all black—really is not typical for a vehicle of this era.”

Howard said he also intends to flush the coolant and oil lines, possibly after one last engine start-up, and refill them with corrosion inhibitors. “We’ll do everything we can to mothball it, but nothing to prevent it from being used again,” Howard said. “That’s the real hard ethical concerns with a project like this. If it’s a typical museum piece, then sure, they’ll never touch it again, but in the automotive world, that’s a different sell. We love autos for what they are, not for being some static exhibit.” Larkin said that the university doesn’t expect to ever drive it again. “It’s too important of an artifact to be out of its case,” he said. Still, they want to make sure the engineering college students get a good look at Old Number One’s mechanisms and how James Ward Packard put the car together. Both Howard and Larkin expect the preservation process to last another two to three months, after which Old Number One will return to its new enclosure. Larkin said the lobby of the Packard Lab building is, and always has been, open to the public. (Thanks to Allen Hess for sending us this article)  

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Hi, Greg.

I just viewed the DVD you sent, "Year in Review 2014" by Chaz de Bourbon that was showed at your club’s Holiday Party. Another great piece of work from Chaz! Must say I was delighted to see a shot of Faith and me awarding our "British Marque Favourite" trophy at the Hellertown show. Not only that, there were a couple of great shots of Rachel and you and ol' #53. So cool she's carrying on the tradition. She obviously loves it. The Seinfeld piece was interesting. He really must be an enthusiast, because it was all about the car, driving through Manhattan, not about him trading wisecracks with his buddy in the passenger seat. In other words, it wasn't a typical "Seinfeld episode"! So, thanks so much for thinking of me and sending it up! I'm going to pass it on to Faith so she can see it, too. I'm sure she'll enjoy it, especially since she's got a little down time now...we're essentially snowed in and there's NO SCHOOL TOMORROW! Yay! --Cheers, Bruce

Bruce Vild Executive Editor and Publisher British Marque Car Club News  

Older  Folks  Often  Need  a  Lift          Jacking  up  cars  and  crawling  under  them  looses  it  attraction  as  you  get  older.    So  I  decided  to  do  myself  a  favor  and  buy  myself  a  “car  lift”  for  my  garage.    My  daughter  Rachel  helped  me  research  what  was  available.    Critical  was  my  detached  garage’s  ceiling  height,  to  make  sure  it  would  fit,  which  measured  was  8-­‐1/2  feet  high.    After  looking  at  what  was  available,  I  went  with  a  four  post,  free  standing  lift  with  ramps.    8,000  pound  capacity.    Its  ramps  width  would  accommodate  MGs  -­‐  as  well  as  larger  cars.  It  also  came  with  wheels,  so  it  could  be  moved  in  the  garage.    Best  deal  was  from  “Lifts  Plus  Depot”  out  of  Virginia.    The  lift,  delivery  to  my  house,  and  erected  in  my  garage,  was  only  $2545!    Not  bad!    Not  only  would  this  allow  me  to  lift  cars  to  work  underneath  them,  and  on  their  sides  (like  tires  and  brakes),  but  it  would  also  allow  me  to  stack  two  MGs,  thus  freeing  up  a  garage  bay!            To  date,  I’m  very  pleased  with  this  unit  (made  in  China  of  course).    If  you  want  to  take  a  look  at  it,  give  me  a  call,  and  then  come  over  one  day  and  check  it  out.        Greg  Prehodka,    862-­‐686-­‐5273  or    e-­‐mail:    MGracer53@aol.com    

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Special MG Racing Events – 2015 2015 is shaping up to be a great year for MG vintage racers and MG enthusiasts! There will be many vintage races around the country, with various racing organizations, where MGs of all vintages will be competing in vintage races. But four of these race events will have a “Special Focus” on MGs. They are as follows: April 10-12 VDCA’s 13th annual “Wild Hare Run” at Virginia International Raceway. This is also the MG Vintage Racers designated “Focus Event” for 2015, with MGVR’s special awards and socials. (www.vintagedrive.com) June 19-21 VARAC’s “Canadian Historic Grand Prix” at Mosport, Ontario. It will include the MG-Triumph Challenge and the “Simms Cup” for vintage racing MGs. Canadian hospitality is wonderful! (www. varac.ca) July 23-26 SVRA’s “Glenora Wine Cellars Grand Prix” at Watkins, NY. Always a favorite for MG racers and MG enthusiasts. It will include the historic 31st running of the all MG “Collier Cup” race. (www.svra.com) August 31st -September 2nd The “Put-In-Bay Road Races Reunion”. This year featuring MG. Put-In-Bay is a vacation island on Lake Erie, Ohio, where they raced sports cars many years ago. Now they are re-creating those races and the “party atmosphere” of them on this historic island. This is as much a vacation as vintage racing for both racers and spectators, plus they have a car show! (www.pibroadrace.com) So there will be lots of MG racing going on this year! Mark your calendars! Please contact the sanctioning organizations for more information on each event. Also take a look at the MG Vintage Racers Web Site “MGVR.org” for more information on MG vintage racing. “Safety Fast” to all in 2015! MG Vintage Racers - since 1981 MGVR.org Greg Prehodka, MGVR Publicity  

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Keystone MG Club – On the Web Keystonemg.com

-­‐ Upcoming  Events            -­‐  British  Car  Event  Cendar  -­‐ Regalia         -­‐    Links    to  other  sources  -­‐ Club    History       -­‐  Newsletters  -­‐ Club  Info         -­‐    Club  Library  -­‐ Classified  ads       -­‐    And  MORE!  

OFFICERS    &  Positions  

 President,  Dick  Horn  Rhorn4733@hotmail.com  610-­‐253-­‐4575  V.  President,  Bob  Pilat  Rap33mthead@gmail.com  610-­‐760-­‐8883  Treasurer,  Bill  Page  FrontPage@rcn.com  610-­‐866-­‐8626  Secretary  Kim  deBourbon  kimdeb@ptd.net  570-­‐4246259  Alternate  Secretary  Sunny  Sonnenrein  Sunny124NY@aol.com  610-­‐346-­‐9624  Newsletter,    Greg  Prehodka  MGracer53@aol.com  862-­‐686-­‐5273  Technical,  Ken  Beck  kenbeck@rcn.com  610-­‐865-­‐3329  Regalia,  Bob  Pilat  Rap33mthead@gmail.com  610-­‐262-­‐2646    

Keystone  Region  MG  Club  –  Founded  1977  

The Keystone region MG Club, Inc. is a club affiliated with both the North American MGA Register and the North American MGB Register. The club meets on the third Tuesday of most months. New members and guests are always welcome. Clbu information is available online at www.keystonemg.com. The club is incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. !