With our focus on the MG brand and more specifically the MGB this issue, it’s fitting that this month saw me make a visit to British Motor Heritage, the firm which can supply you with panels and even entire shells for the B and other British classics.

Compared to modern manufacturing methods the production of panels for classic cars is a labour-intensive one and requires some old-fashioned skills which are apparently in danger of dying out. Chatting to the people charged with maintaining the original production tools it was fascinating to discover just how overengineered they were even in the BL days when you’d assume that things were done on the cheap. Not so: apparently these tools will outlive us all.

Something from the BL/Rover days which hasn’t outlived us all yet is the Metro Turbo. We’ve commented in the past how the original Metro seems to have suddenly disappeared from our roads, but the MG Turbo is rarer still, with just a handful registered with DVLA and single figures actually in use. Which made it all the more surprising when Jim Lott, owner of the car photographed in this month’s feature told us that he keeps the car taxed and on the button all year round, just in case he fancies taking it to work. Respect to Jim for actually using a car which is rarer than some Italian exotica,.

On the subject of MG, we’ve kicked off the 50th anniversary celebrations for the iconic MGB by investigating the different extremes of the market, from £20k chrome bumpered roadster to project GT and it seems that no matter what your budget, there’s an MGB somewhere out there to suit you. It may be 50 years old but it’s easier to restore and run than the blown Metro from an era which still seems like recent history to me. Strangely though, BMH didn’t seem too keen on my idea of producing new Metro shells...

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For all this and much more see the February 2012 issue of Classic Car Mart.