Brian Laine likes quirky cars. At the top of the food chain in his garage in Arlington, Washington, Laine has an original 427 Cobra. At the bottom, he has a recently restored Pedi-Cab. In between, he has a Sunbeam Tiger, Morris Minor Traveler woody, a Bug Eye Sprite, and a V-8-powered Datsun 240 Z.
So when he saw a 1933 MG J-2 pop up on Craigslist.com, he called right away. The MG also appeared on Bring-A-Trailer.com, which made it very popular to a worldwide audience.
“The seller suddenly had offers for the car much higher than his advertised price,” Laine says. “But he did an online search on me and saw I owned a Cobra. ‘Oh, I see you own a Cobra,’ said the advertiser,” Laine says. “I guess that broke the ice for me, because he sold the car to me. He was a good man.”
Brian Laine is always searching for interesting British vehicles. This rare MG showed up on Craigslist. He decided not to restore it; instead, he installed a Ford V-8 60 Flathead.
Laine thinks the seller believed that if he had the wherewithal to own a Cobra, he certainly had enough money to restore the MG to a high standard. And he wasn’t about to say anything to make the seller believe otherwise.
Laine hooked up his trailer and headed toward Seattle, where the car was located. The wheels didn’t roll, so it needed to be dragged onto the trailer.
Now the quandary was to restore or not to restore? The engine in the car is incorrect, as are many other critical parts. The original overhead cam engine is very rare and not readily available. Besides, it only had two main bearings, causing the crankshafts to break easily.
To hot rod or to restore, now that is the question. “I’m in a quandary,” Laine says. “But I just bought a little V-8 ’60…”