This 1934 MG PA is fresh from a nigh-on four-figure bill from Ecurie Fusil to fettle the sort of niggle little jobs many of us would turn a blind eye to – and this built on earlier work from the same firm, which led to an even larger invoice in 2020.

‘TJ 5143’ has clearly not been run on a tight budget.

Paperwork on file shows it was first used as a demonstrator with Messrs.

Woodburn & Spence Ltd of Prestwich before moving, in the same role, to the wonderfully-named J.

Cockshoot & Co.

Ltd of Manchester.

Little more is known until it made the trans-Atlantic move to Colorado in around 1983.

It left the USA in 1989 and was restored by Robert Betteridge in the UK in 1990-91.

The DVLA eventually reissued it with its original registration number, which is a nice touch, and it’s had three former keepers since arriving back in Blighty.

It was the subject of more extensive work in the early noughties; its engine was rebuilt in 2001 and a further 92½ hours of fettling were recorded in 2...