There’s something about last-of-their-kind cars that attracts T enthusiasts. Maybe it’s the sense that a car close to the end of its production run represents the definitive example of the breed or an important part of the marque’s history. Perhaps choosing a car from late in a model’s life may be the owner’s last chance to buy a brand-new example of something they love. For MG fans, there are plenty of endings to choose from and, though he insists it’s not a major factor for him, endings are a recurring theme in Robert Kemp’s collection.
Robert, like his father Bob before him, has owned more MGs than most, with a connection to the brand stretching back to the 1950s when the family firm was an agent for Lucas, supplying electrics to a number of Ireland’s CKD operations including Booth-Poole, the MG and Wolseley assemblers in Dublin.
His father having owned a number of Magnettes, Farinas, MGAs and MGBs, Robert bought his first MG in 1964:throughout the sixties and seventies. When, following Black Monday in September 1979, he heard that BL had decided to shut the MG plant at Abingdon, Robert, like many enthusiasts feared that that could be the end for the marque altogether. He decided to place an order with his nearest dealer, Watson and Johnson in Greystones, County Wicklow, for a black MGB roadster with wire wheels, a specification he favoured thanks to his dad’s 1967 MGB GT which he so admired. After all, it could have been his last chance to buy a new MG.
