Test Car Specifications
Model tested: Frontline MG Abingdon Edition
Pricing: from £79,900; test car c.£96,000
Engine: 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol
Transmission: rear-wheel drive, six-speed manual
Body style: two-door, two-seat roadster
CO2 emissions: c.177g/km (VED Band I, £350 first 12 months, £225 annually thereafter)
Combined economy: c.37mpg
Top speed: 160mph
0-60mph 3.8 seconds
Power: 308hp at 6,800rpm
Torque: 326Nm at 5,200rpm
What's this?
Don't for a minute think this is a classic MGB roadster. Well, it is. But it isn't. But it is. But... right, enough of that. There's a big trend at the moment for re-engineered classics, in which a car design from history is brought bang up to date by highly specialised companies who fit modern engines, brakes, suspension, electrics and running gear into the chassis. Or, alternatively, who start from the ground up with a new rolling shell and underpinnings. Think of the Eagle E-Type, or the Singer 911, or Jensen International Automotive, which has expertise in bringing the mighty Interceptor up to snuff.
Frontline, based just outside Abingdon, the historic home of MG and now the headquarters for the MG Car Club, is one of these re-engineering concerns and it does a fine line in updated MGs. If you're already sneering about the marque, you're not going to be interested in this car, but that'll be your loss, as it's well worth remembering that MG was building the world's leading sports and competition cars while the German car industry was still copying the Austin 7 in order to get itself off the ground.
And the MGB, until that pesky Mazda MX-5 upstart came along (which, as we all know, simply copied the lightweight British open-top formula to create its success), was the best-selling sports car in the world, so if anything is deserving of this modernisation, it's the B. Frontline doesn't, though, take a classic B and then overhaul it. Instead, the company starts from scratch to create this astonishing MG Abingdon Edition.
The technical specification is impressive. The body is handmade in Oxfordshire by British Motor Heritage, before it is thoroughly prepared with all the seams removed and any imperfections polished out of it. Under that long, familiar bonnet sits a Mazda 2.5-litre normally aspirated four, developing heady stats of 308hp at 6,800rpm and 326Nm at 5,200rpm, all sent to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox. The interior is trimmed in fully bespoke materials but uses custom versions of the dials and controls you'd find in an original MGB, so the dash will be familiar to marque enthusiasts. The glorious Dunlop centre-lock wheels are straight out of the MG history book and are shod in Yokohama tyres, while the brakes are four-pot front and two-pot rear callipers made from billet aluminium by Frontline. Suspension is handled by adjustable dampers at the front and coilover telescopic dampers and springs at the rear - adjustable too, of course.
Naturally, this sort of expertise and craftsmanship doesn't come cheap. When the MG Car Club tells you that a solid, if not concours example of an original MGB will cost £13,000 to £15,000 today, the Abingdon Edition's £79,900 starting price tag looks steep; and this test car was around £96,000. However, a mere 25 MG Abingdon Editions will be made and on the day of our test one punter snapped up chassis 01 before we'd even got into the car. Besides, how many MGBs do you know of that can do 160mph?
How does it drive?
It's bloody quick. And not just in a slightly condescending, 'let's go easy on the plucky underdog' kind of way. As in, it can scorch from 0-60mph in 3.8 seconds. Cripes. And it feels every bit as super-rapid as that claimed performance, with even 30- to 50 per cent throttle openings seeing the Abingdon Edition surge forward with a sensational bark from that beautiful Mazda unit. Flat chat, it's incredibly fast, bellowing off into the distance on a long, clean pull of acceleration from low revs to the 7,600rpm redline. Special mention for the wonderful noise the car makes; Frontline spent a long time refining the sound of the Mazda four breathing through its stainless steel exhaust system to ensure it was redolent of the classic MGB. Having driven a B GT earlier in the day we drove this modern version, we can say Frontline has done a cracking job - albeit the Abingdon Edition makes a much more ferocious racket under hard acceleration.
The sheer quality that shines out of everything it does makes you think it was built by a fully factory-backed concern with an endless budget, not an independent company based in rural southern England. The Abingdon Edition could teach many a brand-new, modern performance car a thing or two about steering feel. The beautiful Mota-Lita wheel simply fizzes with feedback and bite at all times, the weighting spot on, the accuracy something to marvel at. The big brakes grip cleanly and effectively thanks to perfect pedal progression, while the throttle mapping is exquisite - the merest flexes of your right ankle in either direction serve up instant responses from the Mazda 2.5.
And the handling is unlike any classic: it's balanced with minimal body roll and loads of grip. OK, so the dampers could have been knocked back a few notches for our test drive - it felt like it was set up for track work, rather than dealing with the rutted lanes around Gozzard's Ford and other suitably quaintly-named places - but even so it never became skittish. You have to measure out the throttle through lumpier bends, but once on the straight, pinning the right-hand pedal to the bulkhead saw epic traction and a jaw-dropping increase in forward momentum. This thing would be phenomenal on a race circuit.
Verdict
We were never huge fans of the MGB, but the Abingdon Edition changes all of that. It'll be rare and it's not cheap, especially when you start adding bespoke options to the build. Yet you won't find anything like it elsewhere save for other modernised classics and actually - compared to something like an Eagle E-Type or Singer 911, two similar re-engineered icons we mentioned earlier - it's something of a bargain at less than £100,000. We'd have never said at the start of the year that one of the most alluring cars we'd drive in 2015 would be an MGB, but this Frontline masterpiece has proved that to be the case.
Exterior Design
Interior Ambience
Passenger Space
Luggage Space
Safety
Comfort
Driving Dynamics
Powertrain
