[Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the March 2015 issue of Classic Motorsports]
Story by James Heine
Many vintage and historic cars come complete with interesting and entertaining backstories. Still, few can match the provenance–or the importance to British motoring&nda…
Moss TC Memory #1:
Laguna Seca Raceway, sometime in the mid-1980s, when Steve Earle was in charge of what were then called the Monterey Historics. I owned an M.G. of my own and had bought a few Moss parts for it, so when I saw that Al Moss had entered his TC, I was thrilled to see it.
I found it in the paddock, leaned into the RHD cockpit (those cut-down doors made this easy), and laughed out loud when I saw the tachometer, right in front of the driver.
Moss (I presumed) had cut a picture of the crankshaft from a Moss Motors catalog, and taped it to the point on the tach face that acted as redline.
(...Much later I'd learn that the Moss TC's 1250cc XPAG engine had been replaced by a 1500cc XPEG from a TF 1500. It was an eminently sensible move, like replacing the 948 in a Bugeye with a 1275 and rib-case gearbox.)
Moss TC Memory #2:
Technically, this is a Goldman TC memory. In June 1985, the American MGB Association held their national convention in Santa Barbara, California, just a short drive from Moss HQ in Goleta. At the time I owned my first LBC, a 1974 M.G. Midget (last year for chrome bumpers and dual SU carburetters), so we drove up from the San Fernando Valley to participate.
The bronze-and-cream TC of Al Moss was not present at the convention, but there was a beautiful Almond Green TC with green leather on display in the hotel parking lot. That one belonged to Howard Goldman, who had taken over the parts business from his longtime partner Al Moss some years before. (The third member of the original founders, Mike Goodman, still owned an M.G. shop in the Valley, where I had occasion to meet him when I was considering purchasing an MGB-GT in the late '80s, and Goodman inspected it for me. The odd noise I'd heard turned out to be a complete absence of oil in the engine. I passed.)
Goldman saw my shiny Blaze Red Midget and asked if he could try it on for size. His son Robert was interested in a Midget but Howard wasn't sure he could fit. (If you're over about 5' 8" tall, you don't get into a Spridget so much as put it on.)
I happily offered to swap test-fits, so when Howard lowered himself into my Midget and pronounced it good, I likewise slithered behind the huge wheel of his TC -- which not only required negotiating the suicide door, but it was on the opposite side of the car from my custom.
So if Robert is listening, and he ever actually got that Midget... I HELPED.
So many great memories of the convention, including the high-performance rubber mats I bought at the Moss Warehouse Sale. As I was slipping one into the driver's footwell of the Midget, I noticed some slack in the throttle pedal. I popped the hood and saw that the throttle linkage wasn't quite right; when the pedal was all the way down, there was still about 25-30 degrees of throttle plate opening left unused. I adjusted the linkage and immediately got a VERY noticeable boost in power, now that the carbs were opening all the way. I've chuckled about those high-performance floor mats ever since.
In reply to sfisher71 :
I know Robert well and have been out in his supercharged Midget. And I drove this TC as well. Great comments. Thanks for being part of our forum.
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