Posted on 3rd October 2024

Marques and Moments

Easing up on the accelerator of my MG Midget to gently reduce its speed, I entered a quaint village by a river. I passed by a junction down which I would frequently drive to my future place of work. Turning into a small side road just before a bridge revealed the brick building of a museum. It was dedicated to the history and engineering of combustion engines that were used to drain the land in the area. This made the land habitable and capable of being farmed.

The museum was hosting a sizeable village event which included a classic car show. On a sunny October morning I trundled into the grounds in the MG and was directed to an area to park and 'display' the car. It was the first car show I'd been to since I had bought the car, almost two years prior to the event. After many hours spent in the garage trying to breath life back into the then 40 year old car, it was finally capable of being roadworthy and displayed (in all its shabby glory!).

My MG Midget in the October morning sun at the show

It was a moment of triumph... and another came when more people started arriving, and a young boy asked what the car was. It was a glipse of similar moments in my past. Though history never repeats itself in exactly the same way, these connections to the past help it to be preserved.

That was about 10 years ago now. It was that car, a 1975 MG Midget 1500, which fully connected me to the hobby of classic car enthusiasm. The conversations, stories and cheerful waves from people when driving down the road are infectious. I also enjoyed working on the MG and learning about its design and engineering. But that wasn't where the story and my passion for cars in general started.

There were many such moments throughout my life, like going on our first holiday together with my wife in my Rover 25, exploring the Lake District. Or attending a local classic car show with my father. Or driving for about 8 hours in one day to visit my brother when he lived hundreds of miles away. Things that make you realise transport is special and its history and its future are important.

I think it's natural that I will have a fondness for the types of cars in which these events occured. It's no surprise I still now own an MG. It is far from being the most important thing in my life, but it does have importance. I don't think that's a silly, strange or wrong thing to admit.

Of course we are living at a time where combustion engines, and cars as transport as a whole, are considered problematic. This is an issue humanity will have to grapple with. But my contention is that you cannot fully consider the problem, and find viable solutions to it, without accepting the context of how important cars have become in our lives.

To some, cars are purely a means of transport with no memorable personal and emotive connections like mine. But even the fact that so many people rely on them for transport is important, and we can't pretend we have all the answers to reducing car usage yet.

The museum and area I visited in the historic MG all those years ago is a symbol of the relevance of combustion engines in our lives and ironically a reminder of the serious threat caused by CO2 emissions, in part created by cars. If sea levels rise and flooding continues to increase in frequency and magnitude, that whole region is at imminent threat. But it is also worth considering the ingenuity of mankind hundreds of years ago that allowed them to turn the area, that was largely submerged, into a fertile, habitable and ecologically diverse landscape.

For me, the MG is a symbol of domestic engineering heritage and personal reminiscence. I certainly don't know what the future holds for transport, let alone the planet as a whole. But for now the marques of cars and moments they provide in people's lives continue to leave lasting memories.