Silverstone 2005

Every year Silverstone attracks many many people and most of them arrive in their M.G. So it's not wondering that you see every model from the Vintage M.G. to the latest M.G. Lola Le Mans racing car!
This year Silverstone was celebrating the 50th annivesary of the MGA and the BMC Competition department. Even if the then new founded Competion department used the Magnette for their first official entry on the Monte in '55, there was no hint on the Magnettes. Must have to do with their bad results. Also the original cars don't excist anmore.
Anyway. Time was limited as always with a full three days programme with racing, cocours and all these things. After our Golden Jubilee last year I had the impression it was a bit quieter in Magnette matters this year. Nevertheless we had 19 Magnettes on the saturday in the register parking area and the same number on sunday. Unfortunalety the sunday was very very wet which caused many people to leave earlier.
This year they had also organized an auction. There were two Magnettes to come under the hammer:
The first being an earkly tin-top dashed Magnette with an estimate of 3,000 - 6,000 £. It was said that the owner spent 28,000 £ (twenty-eightthousand) on the restoration! A short and quick look showed a nice restored green interior, but otherwise the car was not superb what I would expect after investing this sum. Seems the owner saw it the same and the estimate was quite low.

The other Magnette was originally rebuilt for historic racing by Andreason (a famous Magnette racer during the 70s). The car called "Samba" now is still in race trim and was used for historic rallies. The estimate was 12,000 £.
I have no information whether any of the cars came under the hammer, but I saw "Samba" on the same trailer on sunday again. So I asume it wasn't sold.

K & R replicas announced a new model for 2005. Magnette ZA Road and Rally! ZB and/or Varitones will be available next year.