Retrospective: 1993-1995 MG RV8

Most automotive enthusiasts whose knowledge goes beyond surface level can tell you about the demise of the classic British sports car. Once the mainstay of young people that liked to live fast and die young, it died a protracted death in the late '70's at the hand of it's then-unorthodox replacement: the hot hatch.  Cars like VW's GTI, Peugeot's 205 GTI, and many others offered all of the grip, acceleration, braking, and fun but with many times more utility and reliability.  The most well-known poster child of the British roadster was without a doubt the MGB.  Introduced in 1962, the replacement for the antique MGA quickly became a status symbol and a lifestyle.  When it went out of production in 1980, it was a shadow of it's former self: gigantic 5mph bumpers and off-road ride height were required to pass crash regulations, while smog equipment chocked the BMC motor down to almost nothing.  It can't really be said that the MGB was missed when it left.  For most car guys, the story ends there.

What, then, do we make of the RV8?  It looks like an MGB, smells like an MGB, has trailing-throttle oversteer and dodgy electronics like an MGB, but the manufacture date says 1993!  The answer is pretty much what you'd expect: MG, the brand that really made the whole 2-seat sports car popular back in the 60's, got caught with their pants down when Mazda brought out the MX-5 Miata in 1989.  They had a new sports car under development - the weird little mid-engine MGF drop-top which would eventually debut in 1995 - but with the market suddenly friendly to impractical two-seat roadsters again, MG needed something, and needed it now.

Although it looks like an MGB, the only panels shared with the original are the doors and trunk.  The body-in-white was a reproduction made by British Motor Heritage (who started making MGB bodies in 1988), modified with the wider fenders made by Abbey Panel on the RV8 to accommodate wider  rubber at all four corners.

Instead of the anemic  BMC B-series straight-four, the RV8 had... a Rover V8, of course.  Displacing 3.9L with all-aluminum construction and electronic fuel injection, it put out 190 horsepower - or almost double what the original MGB had.  Since it was all-aluminum and didn't have that many moving parts, it was a relatively light engine - however, there were some issues.

The MGB chassis was still riding on a live-axle leaf-sprung rear end, and utilized drum brakes at the back.  Although the significantly larger tires and standard-fit limited slip differential made it slightly less of a handful, the RV8 was a bit wild, with not enough suspension control or braking force to deal with all the rumbling V8 horsepower.  So, a bit like a TVR, then.

Another major difference over the original MGB was the interior.  While the early cars had basic black plastic dashboards, a minimum of doo-dad's and stuff, the RV8 was significantly more luxurious.  The seats were trimmed in rich Connolly leather, there was thick wool carpeting, and a polished wooden dash.  It was an altogether more pleasant place to park your rear than an original car.

Production of the RV8 started in 1993 and extended through 1995, although only 2,000 units were produced.  The main issue was price and competition: at nearly £26,000, the RV8 was an extremely expensive proposition for a country just entering an economic recession.  Also, TVR's gorgeous Griffith sports car used a more powerful version of the same Rover V8 in a lighter, more capable chassis - for less money.  The sports car purists went for the TVR (or more likely, a Porsche) and the MG faithful couldn't really dip that deeply into their pension funds for a new sports car in the first place.

The RV8 did prove extremely popular in Japan, oddly enough.  Of the 2,000 units produced, 1,579 (or about 3/4) of them were sold in Japan.  Which is odd, considering the RV8 was about as British as a  British car can be.  It wasn't a massive sales success for the most octagonal of brands, but it did pave the way for MG's resurgence in the mid-ninties.  And while we all know how that one turned out (Roewe!), I'd have the say the RV8 was a pretty fantastic start.  It was one of the best examples of what MG/Rover was always really good at: taking old, outdated junk and making it new and appealing.  They did it later when they converted the fat, boring front wheel drive Rover 75 sedan into the rear-wheel drive MG ZT 260 and stuffed it full of Mustang V8, and they also took Qvale's left-overs (the ungainly Mangusta) after the brand's failure and made the spectacular SV carbon-fibre bodied sports car.  It's the kind of something-from-nothing ingenuity that's sorely lacking in today's market, and with the high price of admission and the general unwillingness of consumers to venture outside of the norm, we'll probably never see it again.  And that, my friends, is a damn shame.