MGB GT

I had one once.

Bought it from my neighbour Nicky Macerollo. He was the younger brother of Joey, one of the most famous exports of Guelph's Italian community.

Google him.

Not what you were expecting, was it?

Guelph's Italian community has long been stigmatized as a hotbed of mafia activity. The CBC even had a few of my neighbours in a documentary about organized crime once.

That was never true.

A few old-timers may have lived here, but most of the "activity" occurred elsewhere.

Anyway, when I moved into my place on McTague Street, there was this derelict MGB GT parked next door. That must have been one of the earliest examples of the compact hatchback.

She was red, with a black leather interior. There was red piping on that black leather. Had the genuine spoke wheels with the knock-offs, and came with a lead hammer to knock them off.

The only problems were it hadn't run for about ten years and the floor was completely rotted out.

I figured these were minor obstacles. A couple hundred bucks changed hands, and Nicky and I pushed that car from his driveway into my garage.

The high point of my relationship with her was the 30 seconds or so that I had the engine running a couple weeks later.

That filled me with hope!

Sadly, life took over.

I was young and ambitious, and there simply wasn't any time for fooling with an old car, no matter how aesthetically pleasing the interior.

Instead of rotting in Nicky's driveway, she was now rotting in my garage.

Every once in awhile, usually late in the evening, after a toke and a couple beers, I'd go out to the garage and just sit in her for a spell.

My old pal Robert suggested I was on a slippery slope;


"Neumann, if you get one of those blow-up dolls for the passenger seat, I'll be really worried for you."