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The Limo
It was a realization of a well intentioned dream. Yes, the limo has a practical application in my mind. After years of having people tell me that I needed to take an MG to Vieques Island in Puerto Rico where we have a winter cabin, I came up with the answer. A two-seater wouldn’t have any practical use. You see, if I used it as a courtesy car, it would need to be a four-passenger taxi-like vehicle, raised up a little to avoid imperfections on the road or beach.
So you can imagine our brainstorming session at the shop. We had plenty of leftover MGB donor cars and there were two mid-eighty vintage Nissan pickups. So when we examined the chassis components of the Nissans and discarded the rusted frame members, we had good components for the front half and rear half with some frame extensions to make the wheel base right. So when Dr. Steven Fisher, my able bodied torch man, suggested we make it a four-wheel-drive, I said, “Sure, let’s go.”
We started by cutting the MGB’s, one behind the door and the second car in front of the door to get the right length for the axle positions. Then we lined-up and mounted the bodies on the frame before we welded the front and back body halves together. With the bodies fastened and the frame extension calculated, we decided to figure in the four-wheel-drive transfer case, engine position, brake system, and the transmission.
	Because the distance from the engine block location to the transfer case was so short, we found a Volvo 122 four-speed, which was the perfect length. Fabrication of the clutch and bell housing was a bit time consuming and costly because, we made a Volvo flywheel fit a MGB crank, but in the final fit, the engine looked right at home in the stock mounting brackets. Brad Larson and Steven Fisher built the drive train with lots of special considerations. Brakes were a hybrid, Nissan on all four corners with an oversized hot rod master cylinder assembly. Clutch hydraulics were altered to a Tilton high-volume master cylinder in order to provide sufficient movement at the clutch arm.
When the body work was examined, I suggested a rumble seat. With the talented fabrication of Tom Blanchette, the trunk lid was made to open in reverse and a set of seats from the rear of a Toyota station wagon worked perfectly. Steven Fisher was helped in body assembly by every employee at Quality Coaches Foreign Car Service in Minneapolis. The wiring is Lucas throughout with a MG Midget gas tank and electric fuel pump.
Since fitting weather gear was going to be difficult, we decided to leave the doors bare of glass and guts and make a sunshade, modified-top stretching from the windshield to the roll bar with a set of MGB stowaway top bows reversed in the middle to avoid sag. Jeff Gordien applied the Ice Blue paint coat. Now that everything is complete, we have a “luxury limo” that serves as a parade vehicle, or the “wedding car.” Ultimately it will become our Island Taxi and special event limo on Vieques Island in Puerto Rico. In the end the limo was all my fault. -Mark Brandow

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