The MG Story
An account of the 1998 MG show at Jack London Square in Oakland
It is always a dilemma for me whether or not to take the electric MG to the MG show in Oakland's Jack London Square. It is generally a good show in a nice place, but it is out of range of the MG and I hate to tow it there. The prospect of towing the MG means that I have to borrow a tow car and do the required trailer lights wiring ritual dance to get the lights working with the tow vehicle. Well Otmar said that he would be able to tow me there "on his way to the San Francisco airport", and then tow me home after meeting him in San Francisco later that day for a free concert we were going to that evening. So this sounded pretty good.
Friday night before the show, we did the required light dance and test tow with Otmar's newly "converted" Vanagan. He has put a Jetta 3A, 110 horse power motor in a Vanagan as the first part of his new VW stretch project. A Vanagan towing an MG? Well with the new motor it works quite well and it does not even slow Otmar down too much. Quite the set up.
We met the next morning at 9:00 am with my complementary registration in hand and hooked up the MG to the Vanagan. There are three things to check after you hook up a car to a tow vehicle: key in the ignition turned so the steering is not locked, gear shift in neutral and parking brake is off. I learned the hard way to always check these items twice before driving off.
The tow up to Oakland was uneventful and we got there just in time to set up the MG for display. The one thing I had not gotten to, was to make more copies of the handout sheets that go with the MG. I asked the events coordinator if there was a copy shop close by and she pointed me to the coffee shop across the square. When I explained that I need to make copies, she asked how many and wanted to know if it was anything political. I said that I needed about 50 copies and no, it was not anything political. She said she could make the copies, so I left a handout with her and told her to leave the copies on the car if she could not find me. Great! Now I could enjoy the show and the extra handouts would keep me from answering all the same questions over and over again.
I had made arrangements to meet a friend for lunch and this made the show a little nicer to have a distraction from all the questions. This year I was able to get Bob Wing to show up with his electric MGA. His MGA is a nice conversion running 120 volt system with 20 -12 V Optima Yellow top batteries in buddy pairs, a Zapi regen controller and a fancy Zivan Smoother battery monitoring/charging system plus a Russco charger. Bob came down from his home in Inverness and brought Chuck Hursch with him, a follow EAA member. Chuck was full of energy and stayed by the cars and answered questions most of the day.
At the awards ceremony later in the day, Bob got "my" award for most Technically Innovative. I knew this might happen, with his regen controller and sealed Optima batteries. I had won this award for the last two years and I could not think of a more deserving person then Bob, with all the work he has done for the EAA and the promotion of electric cars over the years. I congratulated him on his winning of "my" award and we had a good laugh. It occurred to me later that Chuck had a roll in this too, as he answered questions about the EVs as Bob and I, experienced EV exhibitors, left him to enthusiastically field the question and point out the differences of the two electric MGs, as we took in the rest of the show. Chuck has an E-Rabbit and has been to many shows him self, so he was quite familur with all the questions and comments of the non-converted public.
With the show at an end I packed the MG, answered a last few questions and silently headed off to San Francisco for the free KFOG sky concert just south of the Bay Bridge. I have driven the MG over the Golden Gate bridge twice before, but never over the Bay Bridge, so I was looking forward to the drive. It was a nice sunny day so the top was down and it did not matter so much that there was a lot of traffic. The MG was fully charged the night before so I had almost a full charge. The slow traffic turn out to be a good thing as I had three short conversations about the MG as I made my way across the bridge. I parked in front of the China Basin building, near the train and the new light rail that would take me to the concert. I was a little concerned about leaving the car in the lot, but locked my valuables in the trunk and headed off to the concert. On returning to the car I found one note and a card. I was happily surprised when I read the note. It read: "I want it! Call me and tell me how I can get one!" On the back of the card the owner had mentioned that she had rented an EV and wanted to know more about MG. I wished I had left out literature before I run off to the concert. It was a reminder to always leave literature out when ever I park the MG.
David Coale is the project leader for the Electric Vehicle project at Bay Area Action, a local environmental group in Palo Alto, Ca. The MGs at Jack London Square is but on by the MG Owners Club of Northern California.
EVs in the News
Main Menu
David Coale ___o\____ (650) 493-4503 (w) =)----/()_____()\
copyright 6-11-98 David Coale.