After making contact with a chap in Australia who is rebuilding the Mk1 Ford Escort I built in 1980, the MG owners would be interested in the MGB I built in 1969. This racing MGB became known as “Super Bee”.
Super Bee was/is the most famous MGB to race in Australia, and with all true modesty, hand on heart, I designed, built and raced this car too. I had been in the UK for three years and met up with the chaps in the MG Special Tuning section in Abingdon. They made competition parts for MGs, and I told them of my plans to race an MGB when I returned to Australia. The end result was a list of part numbers of essential go-faster bits. No, they were not donated by the MG Car company to an aspiring young driver. It just doesn’t work that way! In the beginning, you have to prove yourself, and it always costs money. Like getting married, or divorced!
Super Bee in 1971.
Back in Australia, I began work on producing a full race MGB, and the end result of a very rough Bee was entered in the first meeting of 1969. Nothing fell off, and it was already quicker than all other MGB’s. We were up and running.
This was when British Leyland (BL) entered the scene, and my life and the MGB became intertwined.
BL contracted me to drive for them as part of the British Leyland Works Team in Australia, but the MGB had to look more like a production car, and not a backyard ‘bitza’. The factory took it away for six weeks, in which time it was repainted in BL blue and white, panels were straightened, bonnet and door hinges replaced, boot hinges and locks added – a total make-over.
In its new colors (and more mechanical changes), Super Bee set the tracks alight, and by the 1971 season British Leyland was advertising the car as “The Fastest MGB in the World”. Always difficult to prove, but it probably was, being quicker than the lightweight Italian Auto Delta Alfa Romeos for example.
I have written about this car before, but at the end of 1971, the Australian FIA body (the Confederation of Australian Motor Sports – CAMS) outlawed the car from the class and I stuck the “Fastest MGB in the World” in the shed in disgust and went motorcycle racing instead, selling the car and never expecting to see it again.
However, Super Bee still exists and was restored by an Ian Rogers in Australia after it had sat in a shed for 30 years.
Great race cars never die!
