For many, the MGB is thought to be the big brother to the MG Midget, but it was the successor to the MGA and ran between 1962-80. While there were a few variants, the roadster is the most familiar version and includes the seller’s car from 1974. It’s been off the road for about three years and currently has some electrical issues preventing it from getting about. Also, there is some rust to be dealt with, a common problem with these British-built cars. Located in Chittenango, New York, the seller is asking for $2,300 here on craigslist.

British Motor Corporation (BMC) originated these cars, and they were later built by the Austin-Morris division of British Leyland. Across nearly 20 model years, production of the MGB and its variants would exceed a half-million cars. Its demise came largely due to the company’s lack of success with the triangle-shaped TR7. Management felt the MGB was taking sales away from their newer car, which fared no better after the MBG was discontinued.

The MGB was powered by a 1.8-liter inline-4 with a 4-speed manual transmission. The cars were little changed from year to year, mostly to keep up with revised safety standards. For U.S. models, the most noticeable may have come in 1974 when the car’s chrome bumper over-rides were replaced with oversized rubber ones, nicknamed “Sabrinas” after the British actress Sabrina. If that didn’t detract enough from the appearance of the car, later in the model year the chrome bumpers were dropped in favor of all rubber bumpers.  Fortunately, the seller’s car was made early in the model year and avoided that second transformation.

At first glance, this ’74 MGB looks nice, but if you start looking around the wheel well openings and rocker panels you start to see a little rust. But the seller says the frame is where most of it lies and rust was often an affliction on these BMC cars. The roadster was a runner until 2018 and went into storage, possibly because of an electrical short that the seller mentions. There is no juice coming from the battery, so that will have to be sorted out to get the MGB going again, and hopefully, the wiring harness isn’t the issue.

At 87,000 miles, the interior is quite passable, although dirty. With a good cleaning, you might avoid having to replace anything there, if you don’t mind a well-used look. We don’t know about the condition of the top. A plus in this car’s favor is that it was produced before big suspension changes came in 1975 to adjust for new U.S. headlight minimum height requirements. That meant the car was raised by an inch and we’re told, along with the bulky bumpers, that screwed up the handling of these little machines. The period of the late 1960s/early 1970s was the heyday for cars like this before safety and emission controls regulated the fun out of a lot of these sports cars.