505 going to Germany

Hello all V8 owners. Ex-pat Brit living in Germany. Answers to the name "Ed". Pretty much always been a Rover man at heart. I had a P4 95 which I bought from a scrapyard for 70 quid 25 years ago whilst in college and also a P6B. Had 100 cars since then (incl. an SD1 Vitesse) and currently have a Ford F150 5.4 liter pickup in front of the door and a Jaguar XJR V8 on permentant loan from my brother. I build hotrods and parts for hotrods, mainly '32s, so I have my own workshop. See www.edsrodshop.de

Last week while browsing ebay, I found 505 for sale, a blue MG SE Tourer which many of you probably saw. It only had a day to run and remembering my brother had expressed interest in them a few years ago, I mentioned it to him and he bid on it - the only bidder as it turned out. However my brother lives in Manhatten, New York and upon further investigation found out that importing it to America and getting it registered wouldn't cost $10,000 as most cars do but many times that due to the fact that none were ever imported and that the manufacturer is no longer available to provide data. (The world speed record car wasn't registered for street use I guess).

Anyway to cut a long story short he gave it to me - so here I am, quite excited but totally unexpectedly the new owner of 505. Actually I need another V8 like I need a hole in the head! 3 on the drive now. I'm on the look out for a pair of LHD Xenon MK2 lights of course. I'm not really sure what to do with 505. I'll drive it for a while of couse, probably put it on a summer only registration plate to save on running costs. The rest of the time it'll go into storage. Wouldn't want to use it in the winter anyway due to the salt on the roads.

My brother is flying over from New York next weekend to collect 505 from Southampton and drive it down to Baveria to our place. Most of the motorways round here a fairly empty and unlimited so it is possible to go V-max every day round here if you feel brave (and rich) enough.

Anyway, I'm interested to see whether it has more power than the XJR. Well it doesn't actually, 260 against the XJRs 370HP but that doesn't mean anything. The MG is a manual and maybe a little bit lighter.

So that's the funny story of how 505 ends up in Germany.

Welcome along.....there was one imported into the states,and is still there....ir was registred as a Mustang Station Wagon......

I thought you meant a Peugeot 505 at first! (we had a c-plate estate in the family years ago).

I think you'll find the XJR is certainly quicker! but your ZT v8 will have a certain charm.

Enjoy, and welcome :)

Welcome :)

His loss is certainly your gain ;)
The XKR is certainly a nice car and a little bit quicker but the 260 I find is one of those cars with oodles of character especially in europe ;) people didn't know what to make of it when we have been over there with ours. Still think if I was to ever replace mine it would be with an XKR convertible but can never bare to replace mine especially now it has been supercharged.

The nice thing about the xenons is there is a small plastic lever in side each unit that you flick to convert them to LHD, you move one side up and the other side down if I remember correctly... it is in the hand book.

If it has the sat nav built in you can also change the LCD speed readout to kmh by changing the satnav to show kmh, makes driving so much easier! only thing with the LCD speedo is you have to switch it on each time as it is the message computer in between speedo and rev counter.

A bunch of us are over for a meet with the MGF Register in Germany in September and then carrying on for a tour round europe which you are more than welcome to join :) you will be able to read more about it once you have the car and return the questionaire to Tim.

Little more info about the event in Germany can be found here: http://www.mgfim11.com/MGFIM11/Opener.html

Hope all goes well and keep us updated!

Ohh nice collection of cars there and trucks there and when I was in america my ex's father used to do the hotrods and other classics and I find them fascinating.

Hi Ed and welcome. Congratulations on #505.

You can always have it superchrged to add another 140 bhp or so :)

Great looking rods there, I love em!

Whereabouts in Germany are you? Klaus is in Bremen with a V8.

Get along to MGFIM if you can (Merl has already posted a link above).

If not and you are close to Gut Moorbeck maybe we can have abother mini meet there when we are enroute to Sweden again next August (like we did last year when a couple of us met up with Klaus (260) and Herbie (MGF) both from Bremen.

Enjoy 505 :)

Welcome along,

If you want to go the whole hog you could convert the instrument panel to KMH

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MG-ZT-260-V8-B...item2eb0c92995

Complete the questionnaire Tim sent you on registering and you'll get access to the whole site including the club shop

Hi Ed, welcome along and your #505!
Mine is #315 and I´m situated just at the other end of germany in Bremen. If you are passing here to the north, give me a PM. Have fun!:D

Welcome along Ed. If your brother has anymore thoughts of buying cars, can you ask him to get me the new V8 XFR please. :)

Don't forget the questionnaire :D

Hey Ed-enjoy:D! You can just do so much with a MG ZT 260SE. From cosmetics to tuning and it's hard to find any other car that can give so many smiles per mile:)!!

Welcome to bedlam. This is a top crowd. Loads of help and not a few nutters here.

Welcome :D

(Lists of your brothers and sisters)

List of 001 to 883

Estates

Supercharged Cars

Locations

Car Names

Rolling Road Results


The SHOP

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Originally Posted by Klaus

Hi Ed, welcome along and your #505!
Mine is #315 and I´m situated just at the other end of germany in Bremen. If you are passing here to the north, give me a PM. Have fun!:D

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Looking at mobile.de seems to be plenty of V8s in Germany or are they all for sale?
Ed

www.edsrodshop.de

No there's someone that might be able to craft a few fibreglass parts, or the odd undertray or Bonnet vent!

Well - I had 505 for a week now an here's how we're getting on together. It was described in the add as "well maintained by two enthusiast owners" so I guess someone must have crept up in the middle of the night and fitted the 4 chinese tyres!
A couple of niggles;
cruise doesn't appear to work.
the battery light flickers on for a fraction of a second very regularly.
tyres lose air (see above!)

So how is it as a car. Well first off, very seriously underpowered actually. On the autobahn I've given up trying to be fast. Constantly moving over to let diesel A6s, A-classes (!!!) Meganes etc past. Loads of noise but no guts. Even floored between 4000 and 6000 revs it doesn't seem to have much muscle. Seems to lose it's compose over 120mph. Maybe the cheap tyres, so I'll wait for the new tyres.

But... on winding A roads it's very good - would probably be even better with real tyres on it. It handles beautifully and is a lot of fun.

For all those who get upset every time a 260 gets scrapped - get used to it. From experience, about 20% will survive and that's a high survival rate for modern cars. Once they go under 2000 quid, they'll be bought for their V8 engines and Tremec transmissions. Look at the SD1 / Vitesse and Vitesse Twin Plenium survival rates. Mostly gone, robbed of their engines. Just have to hope no one develops a kit car using the 260 as a doner!

Ed

Hi and welcome from Sweden!
The battery flickers on all cars so no worries.:)
Could be a switch on the clutch or brake pedal.
About the power I don't know, sounds like something serious if you get past by a megane, check if the throttle opens fully, could be a stretched throttlecable. If it isn't you could always supercharge it and cruise past the Audi's and Mercedes!:D
With a S/C you will get around 420hp, start saving!:)

Hi 505,

get the tyres sorted and then see what its like.

As Peter said, don't worry about the flickering warning light - most of them do that.

When was it last properly serviced? And where are you? Anywhere near Klaus in Bremen? You could compare 505 to his 260 then.

:cool:

Yeah the cruise switch on the clutch pedal can be a bit sticky, kick the pedal up it seams to be a common issue on all 75/ZT's.

Echoing Peter there, must be an issue or something? As when i took my 190 to Germany, maxing it out certainly no Meganes and such were passing! And drfinalty when maxing out the V8 it was no slouch getting upto the top speed.

Not sure about what you mean with the scrapped cars though, certainly nothing to "get used to" thats for sure, least i sincerley hope not!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 505

Looking at mobile.de seems to be plenty of V8s in Germany or are they all for sale?
Ed

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Think so, I´m also wondering about.
Anyway, mobile.de is a good address to start hunting, as you know.
Mine is a RHD - british cars must be RHD´s:D
See you you!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by colintf

Hi 505,

get the tyres sorted and then see what its like.

As Peter said, don't worry about the flickering warning light - most of them do that.

When was it last properly serviced? And where are you? Anywhere near Klaus in Bremen? You could compare 505 to his 260 then.

:cool:

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Other end of the country to Bremen. 505 has a full service history, due an oil change now. I can't imagine a 4.6 would be down on power after 45.000 miles. You do have to press the pedal down true the carpet to get max power but it's still lethargic. Maybe I'm just spoilt. My pickup has a 5.4 with 300hp and the Jag has a 4.0 supercharged with 370hp.
I'm looking into better flowing heads. Most of the massive power increases we've been seeing over the last 10-20 years has been down to better understanding of flow and the resulting better heads. If I find something I'll let you all know.
Ed

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Klaus

Think so, I´m also wondering about.
Anyway, mobile.de is a good address to start hunting, as you know.
Mine is a RHD - british cars must be RHD´s:D
See you you!

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Also the LHDs cost at least twice what RHDs cost!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AndyG

Welcome :D

(Lists of your brothers and sisters)

List of 001 to 883

Estates

Supercharged Cars

Locations

Car Names

Rolling Road Results


The SHOP

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Would love to have a look through all the lists, and hopefully one day find my dream ZTT 260, but.... its not allowing access? Am I one of the unprivileged?? Help...Ian

Quote:

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Originally Posted by britscimguy69

Would love to have a look through all the lists, and hopefully one day find my dream ZTT 260, but.... its not allowing access? Am I one of the unprivileged?? Help...Ian

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Afraid you have to be a full member to see those links.

Meaning owning a ZT 260 and be a member of the MGOC

i'm the brother :)
so strictly speaking i own 505 too.... can i get access to these lists?

the plan is to supercharge it at some point when time allows. the car can clearly handle a lot more power but its still a lot of fun to drive thanks to its excellent handling and the noise of the x-power silencers. i think our's might be slightly down on power as i think it maxed out at about 135mph. not too sure what could be the cause - maybe just low compression. the factory tolerances of those engines are not great. you really need to rebuild them, machining the block for accurate compression, balancing rotating assembly and porting the intake and heads to get a good engine.

not sure what your problem at high speed was, ed. it felt fine to me.

oh - i bought an e60 m5 that i'm picking up tomorrow. :) range rover blew a head gasket, so i needed something to tide me over :) seemed as good a choice as any other car!

any details on that us import 'mustang station wagon' would be appreciated too.

you could remove the engine and ship the car and engine separately. but you'd still need to register the car someone and that would require either registration as a custom hand built car (state assigned vin) or faking it by stealing a vin from a another car. neither way is desirable to maintain the history of the car.

Welcome along brother to 505, sweet talk your sibling and get the password off him :) We have a couple of members who share with their partners/brothers.

If either of you have questions just post them up. The lists run by AndyG are voluntary and stay within the private forum due to spam bots for one thing.

Well 505 passed it's German inspection no problems at all. The inspector didn't check much really. I think he spent most of the time looking at how Rover changed it to RWD ;-) He accepted the RHD Xenon headlights as long as they were switchable, which they are and that was it. Probably the easiest inspection I've ever had! Bought four new Contis for it too which I'll fit once the car is registered.

Now it'll be getting a summer registration from April - October which saves on road tax and insurance.

BTW - Rover's rust protection underneath is very good, much better than Jaguars. The MG has no rust at all underneath unlike the '98 Jag which is rusting around all the seams!

Ed

well done, thats great news Ed!

Keep an eye on the underneath, they do corrode unfortunately :mad:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 505

Now it'll be getting a summer registration from April - October which saves on road tax and insurance.

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But then you won't be able to use it to get to the slopes! - One of the reasons I'm trading up from a 190 to a 260 is because front-wheel-drive, especially on wide tyres, is useless for traction in snow.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by greeners

Welcome along.....there was one imported into the states,and is still there....ir was registred as a Mustang Station Wagon......

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http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2397/2...682c3862_b.jpg

Looks like a Mk.I SE in Trophy Blue. - A twin to the one I'm buying from Brian T.