British Motor Heritage Factory Visit

Our first stop on the tour was the archives room. The BMH folks have accumulated lots of original documentation and manuals for the British Car industry. A scary amount of paper in there. It is organised very well. As we moved into the factory area we quickly passed shelves with parts available and ready for purchase.

After the parts shelves we came into an area where the rear end of an MGB was being welded together. This was both fascinating and a bit weird all at the same time. Weird only because we can see a brand new MGB rear end being built. They are using the exact factory tooling and equipment. Just as would have been done before being sent to Abingdon in the 1962-1980 time frame. It took me a lot of pictures to catch one with the sparks flying. But I got it eventually and I also captured some video of this.

After this truly fascinating start we turned the corner. Now we see some MGB fuel tanks being made. Again these use the original tooling. I noticed that these had the internal baffles in the tanks. Unlike many of the aftermarket petrol tanks. So, if you’re wondering why your petrol gauge moves around when cornering etc., it’s possible that you have a tank without the originally designed baffles in it.

It’s at this point the size, scope and significance of what goes on is this place seems to hit you. I started to see almost every part imaginable. Floor pans, rear wings and parts bins just full to the brim. All that stuff you see in the parts catalogues are right there in front of you.

We then came across a complete MGB body shell. Here is a completely original full body shell sitting in front of me in raw metal. This truly shows of all the welding and joins. Then you start to comprehend the enormous task that putting an MGB together involves. No robots, all put together using jigs, tooling and welding by people! Parts get finished by hand – all of them! This takes a bit of getting your head around; at least it did for me.

Before heading up to the 1st floor we popped outside for a few minutes. Here I caught a glimpse of all the tooling that BMH have available. It has to be stored outside as they simply don’t have the room for everything. They rotate the tooling needed based on what parts they needed to produce. Obviously our timing was good as we saw MGB parts in progress. We also saw people working on Mini boot lids which were also being finished by hand. The tooling is somewhat protected by the containers. These have been obtained and modified to have one side open. This affords the tools some protection from the weather. The tooling also gets some preparation to protect it while it will be outside.

Up on the 1st floor we had the opportunity to meet 2 BMH workers. They are producing MGB front wings. Very kindly slowed down and talked to us. The workers talk us through some of the steps involved in creating a front wing. I hadn’t thought about the wing being 3 separate pieces of metal. But it is and it’s all placed together using the jigs (everything seemed to be orange). Then welded by hand. This is again extremely labor intensive. At least with the original factory tooling and welding equipment the BMH people have the same capabilities as the original manufacturing staff did.