Rescuing a flooded MG: “I was sure it’d been swept away, turned over”

It just looks ‘right’ somehow. A leaky, draughty garage with no hot or cold running electric inside, backing onto a railway line. The natural habitat of the beleaguered British sports car perpetually midway through a hopeless restoration. But Scott Adshead’s MGB GT breaks that mould... while he fights to stop it going mouldy.

Scott isn’t your quintessentially bearded MG spanner. He’s 28, tinkering under the bonnet in designer trainers when I arrive. And this isn’t yet another tedious multi-decade marriage killer destined never to turn a wheel. In fact, it’s approaching the end of Scott’s second glow up – after his first attempt was cruelly obliterated by a flood.

“I daily drive it – it never goes away for winter. Old boys see me doing my weekly shop in it and they’re shocked, but personally I see it as a good daily,” he tells me in a stout, no nonsense accent. “But maybe that’s ’cos I’ve got the capability to fix it now.”

Photography: Huckleberry Mountain

When Scott first began working on the car, he was at the mercy of the Manchester climate “working on it in all weathers, even the snow”, so finding a garage to rent (“they’re gold dust round here”) was a godsend, however dingy. But given he works in IT, didn’t even learn to drive until he was 26 and has no previous mechanical or engineering experience, what possessed him to set about a 50-year-old MG with the toolbox?

“I grew up on the Isle of Man so anyone who knew me as a kid knew me as a bike person. I never had any interest in cars! This was sat tucked away in the back of a garage at my girlfriend’s nan’s house. Al, her granddad, passed away in 2000 I believe. So many people had asked to buy it but her nan was like ‘no, leave it in the garage, it can stay there’. I just sort of stumbled into the garage to go and put something away for her and I was like, ‘How have I not known this has been here?’ I’d been living in that house for about two years at that point.”

Scott asked his nan-in-law if he could get it running, and became a self-taught mechanic armed with his dad’s advice. “They’re pretty simple things at the end of the day, and weren’t ever built that brilliantly when they were new. So like my old man says, it basically needs three things – fuel, air and a spark.”

I jet washed it three or four times, and couldn’t believe how much sand kept coming out of it

If this was a Hollywood story, of a young lad finding purpose and meaning in the resurrection of a beloved family motor, then you’d need the tragedy at the end of the second act to tee up the climax. And on New Year’s Eve 2024, shortly after Scott had the car taxed, tested and back on the road running errands and commutes, the car gods lobbed one down in the form of a torrential storm.

“We had friends over for New Year’s and we thought ‘instead of just putting on a Peep Show box set, let’s properly go out’. It was raining, but it rains in Manchester all the time.” Scott had parked the MG at the far end of his flat complex’s car park – right next to the river. So when 170mm of rain fell in just 18 hours, it was first in the firing line as the River Tame burst its banks. “Even I had to laugh. The name of our road was Water Street...” Scott grins ruefully.

The first he knew of the disaster was returning home from revelries and finding the fire brigade rescuing residents from his apartment block. The water was so deep even the roof of the MG was completely submerged. “I was sure it’d been swept away, turned over, the car would be gone,” he remembers. But it appears the British Leyland MG was so leaky to begin with, it steadily filled with water as the storm took hold and basically weighed itself down.

“To get to our flat, the fireman had to lead us through the flood. He had his big waders on and we were just in jeans. It was chest deep, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything so cold in my life. And that was after we were a couple of drinks deep...”

“At about seven in the morning on New Year’s Day, everyone’s panicking in the building group chat. ‘What’s going on? Are we being rescued?’ Downstairs a load of firemen were arriving so we chatted to them. They were like ‘we’ve just seen this really old car in the corner, it’s completely had it’. And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s my car’.”

As the waters receded Scott’s neighbours opened their cars’ doors to water gushing out, but the leaky MG had drained. He briefly thought it might be dry inside, but everything was coated in a thick layer of filth, with rumours abounding over raw sewage in the floodwater. 

Undeterred, he wrapped a plastic bag around the steering wheel so he could manoeuvre the MG around, and set to work. A local recovery company moved the car to safety for free, and within hours of its ordeal the MG was having its oil drained. “Well I say oil, it was all just water and sand.

“That was all in the snow. Neighbours thought I was crazy but I knew if I was sitting around sad, I would be dwelling on it, worrying about how much work I had to do. Then I jet washed it three or four times, and couldn’t believe how much sand kept coming out of it. I stripped the interior but I’m still finding sediment in it.” You can follow his progress on his Instagram @scottheadz179.

Now outfitted with a newly upholstered cabin, running a stopgap engine while the original motor is away being tuned for more power, Scott’s MG is once again roadworthy, only months since the British weather attempted murder. The paintwork needs looking at, but it’ll never be a garage queen.

“I don’t like concours and show cars. Getting things pristine is not in my remit because of the amount that I use this car – I don’t even trust myself to work on the interior now it’s all retrimmed, I’m worried I’ll wipe oil off my jeans everywhere.”