Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Bargain two seater drop top.

They are.

Not if you include the RV8.....

Mmm. Rv8 is a funny beast. Drove one early on and didnt like the high seating position. I really prefer the GT but a properly converted B Roadster would be the equal of an RV8 and arguably better in some areas.
I doubt I'll ever go back to MG because the trad Morgan is better in so many ways.

"Real", as in a copy of what Ken Costello originally did?

Good point.

I'm sure the two Costello V8's I've seen were Roadsters not GT's.

Any version is better than that last V8 MG made, what a travesty of design that was. There is one lives locally and every time I see it I shudder, it's a sort of upset stomach greenish colour.

Good point

I also tried an rv8 and thought it an oddity. Just bunginging very thick seats in a space too small made for a hideous driving position as Dave says. I had a sneaky liking for the rear wings though, sort of Bentley lines I thought. In the end I went for an older v8gt as no Costello ones to be found at that time. It was a good car, proper sound, good straight line performance and immensely comfortable even though the seats looked very crude, they were really good. An all day driver alright.
Sold it in the end to the owner of NG cars, I think he was going to rebuild it.
Nick

I fear I'm going off topic here, however I did create the thread..

Why didn't Rover Group introduce a 2.0 litre T-series of the old B once they'd done to the trouble of tooling up for the RV8? Those rear light clusters were classically English in style and cost £180,000 to tool-up for in 1991 money.

Probably management incompetence. The Costello legend has grown out of all proportion to the status of the cars in period. The Rover V8 was mounted on a standard B gearbox with an adaptor plate and a number of cars kept the B rear axle ratio.
Some later cars got an MGC axle (three different ratios available).

Costello showed BL what could be done but the factory cars were so much better engineered.

I've got a magazine article somewhere where they took a RV8 to him for assessment of the conversion and he was impressed. At least I think it was Costello in the article.