The photos on this page will give you an idea of the condition of #43 when I acquired it. In a word it was a bit 'rough' to say the least or as my wife put it, " Are you out of your mind, you sold your XKE to buy that?"   On the plus side, except for a few small items, it was complete. The aluminum parts including the valance, the Microcell seats, the 20 gallon tank, even the Lucas LeMans 24 headlamps, and best of all, the original engine, were there. On the down side, the shell was badly rusted and the car had been partially dismantled. One of my first projects was to begin reassembling the car, using traces of dirt and paint to help me figure out how it originally fit together.
These first photos were taken in Houston in 1989 shortly before I picked up the car. Rotted out sills are nothing unusual on an MGA but this car had apparently spent long periods sitting out of doors with the windshield removed. The cowl had been recovered with white vinyl at one time which trapped moisture and resulted in the cowl being completely rotted out. Leaves and debris had collected in the fender to 
body seams and caused those areas to rust away.  In the picture above the white arrows point to some of the rotted out areas. On the right the arrow points to the spot where the roof pillar had broken away from the cowl leaving the body in two halves. There were perforations along the entire length of the cowl to inner fender seam leaving only the wheel wells and the bulkhead salvageable from the nose clip.
The fenders and doors sit ready to be loaded in this picture. On the right side front fender under a heavy layer of bondo were the holes for the number illumination light and a deep crease at the bottom of the fender visible in some of the race photos. Both front fenders have lift the dot studs at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions for the clear headlamp covers. On the rear fenders the holes are there for the stock 1600 tail lamps but they have been filled with rubber plugs.

Finally, #43 and I arrived in New Jersey after an around the clock drive from Baton Rouge where I made an over night stop and met with the first of the Louisiana owners for dinner. There he presented me with the original carbs and driving lights that he had removed years before, along with the chrome plated plug that fits in the front valance to cover the handcrank hole.                               Incredible!