People who like MG cars like to do lots of fun things together. On this page I am showing a selection of photos of club events and other events or excursions involving these cars and the people who like them. Most of the scenes shown take place in the San Francisco bay area of California. The MG brand has been called "the marque of friendship" and it really rings true. I have visited MG enthusiasts all over the world and received the same warm welcome wherever I went. It's a truly international and diverse group of enthusiasts. This page is really just a collection of snapshots, not too well planned or laid out on the page. Maybe I'll improve it later.

Here are some shots of a trip to San Francisco I took with my friend Kyle, on which we drove my '67 MGB roadster.

Here are some photos of a tech session of the MG Owner's Club of northern California held at O'Connor Classics in Santa Clara. I can see Mike Jacobson, Dan Shockey, J.R.Boye, Bob Stine, and various other folks. I should probably do a better job of remembering their names!

And now here are some photos of my friend Terry Sanders, his workshop and his very beautiful 1937 MG SA drophead coupe which is owned by him along with cartoonist Phil Frank who created Farley.

Here in Terry's workshop you can see some of his other cars, such as an MG-Arnolt, an MG-TA Midget with "modern" spriget drivetrain, and an MG-N type magna (I think). Like many enthusiasts, Terry is not really into anything all that modern. He tends to stick with MGs from the 1930s, occasionally venturing into the 50s. Not that Terry is necessarily among them, mind you, but of course there are those who still believe that the REAL MGs were those made in the golden era of the 30s and that all others are mere pretenders. It is probably true that the marque has never been quite as on top of the world as it was in the days of MMM cars (Midgets, Magnas and Magnettes). The laurels earned then were such that it was possible to rest on them, as it were, for many years to follow, and sell a lot of cars too.

And here are some pictures of an all day and part of the night club outing that ended at Pigeon Point on the coast to see the lighting of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, which apparently is a big annual event.

This is actually a very special car, a REAL MGB-GT V-8 somehow imported from England, a real factory car, not some phoney custom. If not for the fuel crisis, this should have been one of the biggest selling sports cars ever. Most fabulous!!

MG people are very welcoming, they don't care what car you bring on the trip actually! These two came in a type 356 Porsche.

And of course this is the Lighthouse at dusk. The light was lit up and put out this amazing fan of beams all around the landscape, I got some photos of it but the effect seemed too subtle for these web type images so I picked this one instead. Anyway we all enjoyed it, but I stayed so long that everyone else disappeared, fortunately I knew exactly where I was so it was no big deal. It was odd to watch all these people trying to take photos of the lighthouse and the light, but using flash, which would surely ruin any chance of getting a photo of the effect.

Sometimes our club has planning meetings, to try to plan out what events we are going to put on for the coming year. This one was at Randy Grossman's house in San Leandro. Randy is on the left, and to his right is Mike Jacobson, and Nina Barton. Many other club members attended this meeting. I think we ate pizza.

One event we planned is our annual club show at the Marina at San Leandro. This event was actually started by a club member named Bob Burns, who had the idea for a show with Jazz at Jack London Square in Oakland. We had our show there for several years until the people who administer that location changed the terms and made us feel unwelcome. After that we switched to the new location. I think Bob used to have a nice MGA, but I haven't seen him for a long time now. This event has turned from an experiment into an annual event and a very successful one! Here are just a few pictures of this event recently. Somehow I didn't get any good photos of people at this one.

The next two pictures are of my friend Bill Hiland's workshop and his really nice yellow MGB. This car is special because it started out life as a "rubber bumper" car. You can see some of these in other photos on this page. Some MG folks see these cars, made in the late 70's, as less interesting. Anyway Bill likes to buy these up and fix them up. They can be converted back to an earlier look, which has been done on this yellow car. This car has a lot of subtle, very nice, custom bodywork, and a lovely paint job, plus a beautiful interior. It has also been extensively mechanically customized. About the only thing stock is the motor itself, but it has been souped up and also has a special Australian supercharger that Bill likes more than the usual one you see around. The gearbox and rear end are from Fords, it has bigger disc brakes on the front and has been converted to disc brakes in the rear too. One day on the freeway Bill blew past me in my stock MG, so the performance really shows. To me this is the nicest rubber bumper car ever! I just don't want to know how much it cost to build!! In the photo, wearing overalls, is Dan Shockey, a very active club member and a friend.

Sometimes clubs have events at the racetrack. This one was at Laguna Seca near Monterey. There were some vintage race car MGs around. My friend Eric Baker, who bought my MG Magnette, is shown with the car. He decided he wanted to drive this car around the track with the other members on the "touring laps" our club got to do. But, he wanted ME to drive. Drivers were required to wear a helmet while on the track. Ah, the things we do for friends! I am showing a race track view from inside the Magnette, but I decided not to show the silly photo of me wearing a crash helmet driving this overweight underpowered old antique car around the race track. It was almost unbearably slow and really something of an absurd exercise. Classic car owners, especially those who own cars of marques that ONCE were competitive in racing, have this kind of affection for the race track and for the idea of driving around it. It's true that even the Magnette was once a competitor in saloon (sedan) racing, but that was a LONG time ago! It was fun to see the drivers view from the track however.

The following are some photos from an annual event called "The British Car Meet" which has been held in Palo Alto for many years. This event is put on by a fellow named Rick Feibusch. There are sometimes several hundred cars on the lawn, of all different British marques. The first photo shows two friends, Lora and Eric. The car behind them I used to own, it has it's own page in another part of this site. Eric Baker is a long time friend so selling the car to him was almost like not selling it, which was good because I really didn't want to anyway!!

This is my friend David Wright with his E-type Jaguar- he also owns an MGB vintage race car and is a club member. Before the E-type he owned a Jag Mark II, but the E-type was his dream that he finally realized.

This is my friend Paul Watts at the British Car Meet. Paul used to have this cool place in San Jose which was supposed to be a fertilizer factory called "Garden Valley Fertilizer Company" but always seemed to be more of a front for his true interest which was having lots of old cars around, especially MGs. There were MGs all around the fertilizer tanks. Once I even saw a Russian car there! You could go and visit Paul and get all sorts of used parts, often for really reasonable prices. One time I got various little parts and he said "I need some cat food, give me $5". Another time I needed a door, so Paul got a forklift, brought over a junk car, put on some sunglassed and proceeded to use a cutting torch to help the door part company with the car it had been attached to. One time he let me drive an MGC-GT around his yard, the only time I ever got to drive one. I sure miss Paul's place! Paul is apparently very interested in swimming competitively though I've never seen him do that. I think Paul's Dad started the fertilizer company, and it was one of the remaining remnants of the agricultural industry in the Santa Clara Valley, an industry that was regrettably wiped out by later developments.

This is a decal from a car seen at the British Car Meet. This refers to a kind of suspension called "hydrolastic". I did a restoration of a car that had this, called an MG 1100 sports sedan, owned by Lora Lerner, who is pictured above. I also met the fellow who designed this type of suspension, who is Alex Moulton. He also designed and built bicycles with suspension, but that's another story.

These three photos are from a tour I led in the Santa Cruz mountains. It had started to rain that day so I put my top up on my yellow '67 MGB, which I don't usually do. Various MGs and a Triumph came on this tour. We went on a lot of small roads not often travelled. Afterwards I had a little swap meet as I was trying to sell off a large collection of parts I had. Some people bought some parts, but I still had a lot left. In the end I traded them all for some Moto Guzzi stuff.

Here is a photo of some club members' cars in front of the Lick Observatory, at the top of Mt. Hamilton, east of San Jose on Hwy. 130. We took the trip up there even though it was all wet and drizzly. We got to see the 120" reflector telescope, as well as the other ones you usually see.

These pictures show another driving event in the Santa Cruz mountains, but with a much different route on bigger roads like Hwy 9. This one ended in Santa Cruz on the wharf, but we stopped at Natural Bridges State Beach on the way.