Do people HATE MGFs?

[Barbour]

Jezza liked it, so it seems...

Jason Barlow fancied the Trophy

[Reckless Rat]

Shame that Jezza turned into a bit of an arrogant beer swilling overweight twat.

[Green Squirrel]

Remember it well !! On the strength of that review we went out and ordered one - it arrived six months later ----
and we still have it!

[Alan D.]

Who cares? I have loved the F since the first time I saw it. I’ve driven MG’s for going on 20 years now and have no plans to change that. I’ll restore and maintain the current fleet and keep them going for as long as I can. I can’t imagine any other car providing what MG has. The cars and community have become a way of life and I can’t put a value on that. It’s been a pleasure to get back into an F recently after 14 years of TF’s and to reacquaint myself with the ZT after 10 years. I’d forgotten just how good they were. I’ll keep flying the flag.

[Rob Bell]

The classic press love the MGF. As I was reminded by the team at Classic Car Weekly, the motoring pressed raved about the MGF at its introduction, and were very positive about the TF. Significantly, the positive notes were not just by the home team, but from across the various markets. That both cars sold so well speaks volumes.

It makes the current tone of certain automotive journalists and those non-owner "haters" somewhat difficult to understand?

I'm not bothered. I love my MGs - I just find the whole situation perplexing.

[mbwoy84]

I don't think the MGF is massively "hated", but sure (as most things do), it can attract some real haters in the same way that there are serious lovers of them.

I remember when the MGF was launched, it was just before I turned 11 and remember liking it as a kid and there seemed to be a real fanfare when it was launched as it was the first all new MG in many years and it was well-rated by the press at the time.

The old K-Series Head Gasket Failure thing will have tarnished the car's reputation for many people as will patchy build quality in places and the fact that not everyone really "gets" small 2-seater sports cars, but some people do, hence the strong following.

I bought my first MGF quite a few years ago half by accident. A life long fanatic of cars of all shapes, sizes and ages, once I was old enough to drive and a couple of years later made a decent amount of money I decided I was going to try and own as many different types of car as I could and thought if I could buy wisely I could run all kinds of different car for a while and later sell them without losing too much money or even make a bit back if I was very lucky, so I could feel like a car collector even if I couldn't afford 100's of cars at any one time. One day I made the opening bid of £550 on a British Racing Green 1996 P-Reg MGF and spent the next few days hoping I'd get outbid, but I didn't, so ended up owning the car.

I hoped I'd get outbid as the photos of the car were really bad and there was no history with the car and you could see that someone had literally thrown a bucket of water over the car to take some photos. When I picked it up the roof was terrible, the inside was covered in thick dog hairs and the paint was flat and scratchy, plus the passengers door was peppered in dings, but after a good day deep cleaning the car it actually came up very nicely. Then a new door in the same colour for 99p off eBay and a good service later it was actually an excellent car, which I loved driving, so I bought and fitted a complete new roof for it and it was lovely.

Then I sold it to an elderly gent, after advertising it in Classic Car Weekly and recouped just about what it owed me. I kept getting phone calls for months later asking if it had sold and with hindsight I probably should have sold it for at least an extra couple of hundred quid, but I was happy and the guy who bought it was over the moon and that's what really got me into MGF's. I liked the car far more than I expected to.

[Rob Bell]

Yup: those pesky MGFs do tend to get you don't they?