And pigs might fly…….......... 
Not a lot of people know this, but not all MGCs hate bends. This ‘half-price Healey’ is a fine car, says Classic and Sports car road test journalist 
Paul Hardiman.

MGC: hates corners, loves going straight on. Never a patch on the big Healey. Right? Not always.

Experts who have never driven a C perpetuate it as a pariah of plough-on under steer. It was where they put the motor, you know; nowhere to hang an overweight straight-six in the poor old B bodyshell, except right out front. In an effort to help turn the wheels, BMC lowered the steering ratio, meaning more twiddles for the same amount of corner, and decreased the castor, both of which have the effect of deadening the steering. Coupled with inadequate rubber, this made the under steer police cry foul at the car’s launch in l967. Expecting some sort of Healey-beater, the press damned it. And thus has a potentially good car grown up under a shadow.

Let’s get one thing straight. On skinny 165 section ‘60s radials the original test cars must have turned-in with all the alacrity of an oil tanker. But the C is no more nose-heavy and slow-steering than the Austin-Healey 3000, the car it was meant to replace. Any nobody complained too bitterly about the heavy steering and lack of precision on those except the poor sods who had to rally them. But put a C on better rubber than the esteemed gentlemen of Autocar and Motor then had access to, and it’s a whole different story. It has an even happier ending if, like Graham Pearce’s car here, there has been some sympathetic attention to spring and damper rates and suspension bushes.

Sure, you’re aware of much mass up front, which demands a certain amount of negotiation before allowing entry to corners, and this will never be a car for line-chopping – but, with a certain amount of throttle commitment from the driver, spirited cornering on demanding country roads needn’t make an old man of you.

But a discussion ploughing un-diverted from the issue of under steer and how to limit it is a blind alley with the C; few people drive that hard on the road anyway. This friendly grand tourer’s real forte is covering ground without tiring you; its appeal that of a relaxed animal, on a completely different plane to the two-door A60 that spawned it. The lazy straight-six imbues the car with a charm quite different from the breathless bustle of the B – and although the exhaust note doesn’t sound much different from the four-cylinder car’s, it’s amazing how little more than an engine change can produce two different cars of such diverse character. On slightly uprated springs and dampers this car doesn’t shake or rattle, and roll is well controlled – much more so than a B. On the big 15in wheels you’re scarcely aware of the fact that there’s a live axle under you – possibly a result of the C’s extra weight, at 2477lb against 2128lb – with little of the tramp which perverts the B’s composure every time you stray on to rippled surfaces. In short, the C is the car the B should have been. 
.
To read the next page click here