MASCOT March April 2003

Letter

From Bob Andrew

Dear Mike.

This is an article about Roadsters, recent experiences and my personal opinions and comments. First may I say how the Mascot continues to improve and that 1 eagerly await its arrival, as I do the SOC mag.

My low mileage 4AB (Nearly 30,000) underwent some carefully considered changes last summer. It was a highly original car, except the paintwork and some chrome, plus an excellent Bill Haverly fibreglass gearbox cover. The leatherette-covered seats - pre-vynide days, as the car is an early blade bumper model built in 1950 - were in excellent condition but fairly uncomfortable and unpleasant looking material, so I had them reupholstered in leather. Much more comfortable, but colour match not the best with the other trim. I then fitted a narrow-slat 4AD type radiator grille, hoping for better cooling but found no perceptible improvement. Most important of all. Trevor fitted a 4:44 differential and I had the speedo recalibrated. The engine copes perfectly even with a 1 in 3 gradient. The general acceleration appears much better, but of course, making full use of the gears. Top gear acceleration, needless to say, is well down, but mpg on a run is an easy 40 at 50mph cruising, and local is almost 35, which previously was the best I could get on a run!

Since a boy I have always collected road tests and enjoyed comparing performance of different cars. A very good friend of mine in ASCO always refers to the 4AD's as "mousepower". I felt this was a little unkind so I looked up some figures. I will not bore you with too much detail, but the figures from Motor World in the Nov/Dec 02 Mascot show the 1250 and 1500 cc versions of the MG of that time (Car "A" and Car "A" Mk 11 resp -1250cc for Car "A" Mkll is a misprint) were slower than the Singer. 1950s road tests generally confirm the 4AD to have better acceleration by quite some way, though top speed is similar. After all, 0-50 in 13.5 seconds was considered quick in those days - that was a test of a single-carb 4AD in 1951. True to say, a 1954 road test by one magazine recorded 17 seconds for 0-50, but the same car did 14.8 in another magazine. Again, one road test reported the speedo with a small under-read throughout the range, and another car with a small over-read, but both cars and drivers are bound to vary.

Best wishes to you all in ASCO