Clarkson  on Jaguar E-type vs Aston Martin DB5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9nNaBAW6eI 

It's very strange. I've got an MGB of a similar generation to those and it seems quite a different story (1971 Series-2). Due to the age of the car (and the fact that I drive it like a spot's car not a museum piece) it sometimes has things like catastropic structural failures (a couple of time in the last twenty eight years or so)- but since I replaced the loom connectors all the lucas electrics in the 80's it's had fewer electrical problems than my new Mercedes.

As for performance - most of these 'show cars' like Clarkson's seem very poorly tuned but if you always work with a good MG race mechanics and let them upgrade what is needed I've found performance very satisfactory - much quicker than a BMW or Mercedes of the same engine size - at least when on good modern tyres - and well able to take the speedo needle way off the end of the scale.

I was wondering if I'm just deluded writing this but I remembered that a couple of weeks ago a very stock looking 1950s MGA (not even a twin-cam) was able to completely burn me off and leave me standing while I was driving my wife's newish 3 litre V6 24 valve Renault. So my conclusion - Clarksons cars were poorly tuned 'dogs'