The MGB GT V8 - a great car with a wonderful engine

WHAT do the Rover P6, the TVR Griffith, Range Rover and the Morgan Plus 8 all have in common?

Fans of loud, burbly exhaust notes will probably nail this one instantly - lift this very different variety of bonnets and you'll find, in one state of tune or other, a Rover V8. A aluminium thunderstorm which - thanks to it powering a string of my dad's Land Rovers and Range Rovers - provided the motoring soundtrack for much of my childhood.

 

Yet it was only yesterday I finally got up close to one of the rarer entrants from the Rover V8's back catalogue - the MGB GT V8, of which only 2,591 were made during a stint in the Seventies when British Leyland had the three litre Ford Capri in their sights. That's why I popped over to my friends at Parkhill Garage to see what should be an instant hit in my books - a Rover V8 in a MGB GT, a classic I'm more than familiar with.

It didn't disappoint.

You just have to click the video I recorded to realise why I was smitten as soon as it started up - just listen to that exhaust note! Compared to my own, four cylinder MGB it's got forty more horses to call upon, it does roughly the same to the gallon (weird, but true), and - because the aluminium V8 is such a light engine - it actually weighs a tiny bit less too. Oh, and it's rare and looks fantastic and goes like stink.

This or a Capri? You decide...

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