GREEN Thinking

MGF (1995-2002)

We had one of those comedy moments a while ago while discussing MGFs when a colleague commented how “some idiot’ had recently told him they were good for 40mpg. “That idiot was me,” I piped up confidently and I stand by my comment today. Having run both an MGF VVC and a later TF as project cars on various magazines, I’ve covered thousands of miles in both and can report that they’re surprisingly good on fuel as well as offering some of the lowest all-round running costs of any classic.

The secret of course is in their light weight, which coupled with a modern engine means the MGF offers efficiency light years ahead of a more traditional British roadster.

Unlike, for example, Lotus, the Longbridge engineers weren’t driven by a single-minded pursuit of lightness in a quest for ultimate engineering elegance but were driven by circumstances and resources.

We’ve covered the history of the MGF many times before but as a recap, the basics are that three proposals were originally submitted: one was a front-driver based on Maestro running gear which was discarded because that car was itself about to become obsolete. Another was a rear-driven V8 car which was felt to be out of step with the changing times and the third was a mid-engined concept, which had used Metro subframes front and rear purely to quickly create a running prototype.

It was, of course, the mid-engined concept which was chosen and in the journey from concept to production nobody saw any reason to replace the Metro-derived parts. When the all-alloy K-Series engine was added to the mix, the result was a car which weighed in at just 1070kg – in other words, exactly 100kg more than the MX-5, a roadster designed from scratch by a Japanese giant with infinitely greater resources.

The K-Series has gained a colourful reputation over the years but in truth most of the head gasket issues stemmed from owners not realising the car had run low on coolant thanks to the many potential leak points between rear