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A dark green MGB roadster from 1967 is the subject of my new classic car portrait on wood. The original car is in the collection of a gentleman from Alberta, Canada. His wife (well, technically, ex-wife) wanted to give him a personalised gift celebrating the car that he’d inherited from his father. This was also the very first car he’d ever been in, since it was in this MG that, as a newborn baby, he’d been driven home from the hospital.
Using photographs of the car itself, and others of similar models, I set up the contour in pencil. To ensure a smooth surface for painting, I filled in the contour with white gesso, and sanded it down with the finest grade of sandpaper. This was repeated five or six times, until the surface was silky smooth. A large knot in the centre of the wood panel posed a slight problem, but the layers of gesso and a small amount of filler dealt with it well.
A lot has been written about the technical history of the MG, so I thought I’d include a couple of entertaining snippets from MG’s publicity efforts in the 1970’s. This is a bit later than our car’s production date but it’s the era I remember! The advert above is from one of my old UK Motor Sport magazines from 1974. It captures the spirit of excitement that the MG was all about. The obligatory young lady is waiting for her chap, escaping from prison, to jump into the driving seat. He’s whisking her away rather than the other way round. I don’t think we’d accept this ad today. (Interesting note: At the bottom you may notice that it says “You can still have fun at fifty.” This refers to the fifty-mile-an-hour speed limit that was in force in the UK at the time, as a fuel conservation measure following the 1973 fuel crisis).
At around the same time, the humourist Alan Coren wrote an advertising piece for the MG in the style of a magazine article (this is from Motor Sport magazine, June 1974):
The first car I ever owned was an MG PA Midget, five years my senior; which no doubt entitled it to the mastery over me it always showed. Its sturdy little doors were bound to its sturdy little body with piano wire (since what it conspicuously lacked were sturdy little hinges) and when you hit the brakes, the speedometer fell in your lap. In wet weather, it was fitted with a passenger, this being the only method of holding the roof on, and the combined roar of engine, exhaust, tappets, rearaxle whine and wind was a feature that has left me with a permanent shout: even today, gliding along on the silken purr of some modern seven-bearing crankshaft, I have difficulty in talking below a shriek.
Now, some of you may feel that, as far as sales pitches go, they have come across more seductive examples. You are, with respect, wrong: when I bought the above item in 1959, it was twenty-five years old, had passed through almost as many hands, had been caned across some two hundred thousand miles of rough road, yet it remained not only an object of joy and love, but would also have gone up the North Face of the Eiger in third, if one had managed to get a decent run at it.
It cost twelve quid; and even granted that inflation has accelerated at a rate that would leave any sports car at the post, that was still not exactly a king’s ransom in 1959. And yet, in terms of the mystique it conferred and the delight it afforded, its true value was incalculable.
Even stationary, the Midget did all I ever asked of it, viz, snatch girls’ eyes from less worthy occupations and draw their attention to an object which might otherwise have passed as unnoticed as any other pimply duffle. After which, it was then up to me to capitalise upon it; and it is fair to say that to MG must go the credit for much of my character development, required as I was to live up to the image of a dashing adventurer, a heroic hedonist, a bit of a dog, yet a mature and capable man withal, a bloke with the enviable gift of twitching something volatile out of the wet on a dodgy corner.
That is one of the great strengths of the sports car; it can be all things to all men, conferring maturity on youth, and youth on middle-age — I now recognise that there is no better rejuvenator for both the ego and the image than something low, snorty and multi-carburetted. It is far less painful than having your follicles transplanted, and far less ridiculous than forcing your welling gut into a pair of flared hipsters.
All of this ego-boosting may well apply to women, too: I am constantly being told that girls are unconcerned with the panache bestowed by this motor car or that, but having seen a number of them hacking a roaring piece of pastel painted metal away from the lights, giant sunglasses shoved with careful abandon into their coiffes and the dainty left hand twinkling over the gearstick for all the world like something attached to a busty Fittipaldi, I beg leave to entertain my doubts.
I thought long about the wisdom of saying what I finally decided to say next ; I have spent large chunks of my writing life in attacking advertisements Of one kind or another, usually on the basis of their nonsensical claims or the preposterous life-style they promote, and nothing sets my molars grinding more than a palpable lie tarted up to pass for truth. I naturally worried, therefore, whether I ought to bring this chat about sports cars in general down to the specific object of this advertisement by saying that the name MG is virtually synonymous with the words sports car.
What persuaded me to say that it was is the fact that it is true, and there is no denying it is true, and it is as good a way. as any of moving from the general to the particular, since everything I have said about sports cars applies emphatically to the MG. It is an evocative and a haunting name, girt with romance and nostalgia, calling up another era. In a modern MG, one not only slips into the role of present hero, one picks up the accumulated heroics of all the blokes who ever sat behind that thrilling wheelboss and its poetic enamelling.
In short, it is nice to think that there are still MGs around to drive.
Many a classic car portrait is made using very fine airbrush techniques, computer rendering, or the finest possible level of work with paint on canvas. For me, as with many automotive artists, the main sources of fascination with the subject of cars is their sculptural form and reflective surfaces. I have always found depicting light and reflection of secondary importance in my work, but with cars, I do think these qualities are a vital part of their appeal. One of the main challenges for me, then, in taking on a classic car portrait, is to develop mastery of light and reflection to the degree that suits my style of work. I hope I’ve succeeded with this piece. I’ve certainly learned a lot, and hope to improve my car-painting skills with more such portraits in the future.
You can read about a previous MGB portrait here.