NEW OLD STOCK
It’s a dilemma familiar to anyone working through a restoration: after spending a large chunk of your life and a small fortune getting a car back to original condition, do you then ruin that originality by incorporating all the tempting performance and convenience upgrades that have been developed over the years?
In the case of the MGB and its one-time nemesis the TR7, the popularity of creating your own V8 version for example is so great that there are more converted cars on the road than the factory ever made. Of course where the MGB is concerned, there is a very simple way to sidestep the issue and that is to buy the factory-issued V8 car.
Not the original Seventies one though, which was only ever made in small numbers and as the hardtopped GT rather than the Roadster. We’re talking about the RV8, which revived the octagon badge in the mid-’90s to keep the brand in the public eye until the MGF was ready for production.
The RV8 was developed by Rover Special Products on what by car industry standards is a tiny budget of just £5 million, something which was
