1975 Roadster Jubilee Year MGs – a little known fact

In 1975 all MGs (Midgets and Bs) – not just the limited edition GT’s – that left the Abingdon factory were adorned with gold colour MG badges front and rear instead of the standard silver colour badges to celebrate 50 years of MG. This is as well as producing the 751 limited edition jubilee year MGB GTs that also had these badges plus the special colour scheme and stripes. Apart from these external badges all these cars had a gold (yellow) backed motif in the centre of the steering wheel horn push, and all the cars that went to N America also had a special plate attached to the dashboard commemorating this jubilee year as well.

It is now very rare to find these cars still with their original (or even replacement) gold badges unless they are on one of the remaining 750 limited edition GTs.

Over the years most of the 1975 made cars will have been lost or refurbished and then shed with the then current silver badges. Also unfortunately 1975 was a poor year for sales and many cars were not sold till the following year (like mine) by which time the jubilee celebrations were over and perhaps many badges were replaced with the silver badges – who would want to buy a “year old” model.

Pictures:-

The picture of the front badge above is made up from a rubber bumper front badge mounted on a chrome bumper badge to fit my RB to CB conversion. The others are the boot badge and the steering wheel emblem – which was in fact a yellow inset over the original red colour background.

The other pictures are extracts from Clausagers book ORIGINAL MGB giving details of dates and body ID numbers when these changes were made.

So it could be said that all owners of 1975 MG cars have in fact got a sort of “special edition”!!