It's one of the great anthropological mysteries of our time: how did the British come to specialise in the building of convertible sports cars when the native climate is so inimical to the use of them? You can see why the Italians would get good at it, what with the sunshine. But the British? It's like discovering that it was the people of Ukraine who developed and honed to perfection the surfboard.
Yet Britain and topless motoring go back as far as 1924 in the case of MG, or Morris Garages as it was then known. Given the weight of the marque's history, it is little wonder that people have deeply entrenched ideas about what it means to own and drive an MG.
It means you have more than a passing interest in the national sporting heritage. It means you like to go fast, but in a traditional, unthreatening, entirely decent kind of way; and that you may not be averse to stopping off at a country pub somewhere for a pint of the landlord's best bitter. And it means you don't mind getting soaked on a fairly frequent basis, when the rain falls and you've still got the top down.
It's an awesome testament to the strength of the brand that characterful and reassuring signals still shine out from the MG badge, even after the usual takeovers, mergers and moves to Birmingham that form the story of almost any long-lasting British car production outfit. The odds on the survival of the brand's essential mystique were not always favourable.
There was a time when, as a result of MG's commercial affiliation with Rover, the octagonal MG badge (which had long since assumed a shamanistic importance among car enthusiasts) decorated the front of the Mini Metro - a car which has some claim to be the least sexy vehicle ever created. It was akin to Marco Pierre White putting his name to Bernard Matthews' turkey rolls. Yet the brand proved nigh on indestructible.
In our time, we know MG most of all for the MGF, which has been the best-selling British roadster for the last five years, though without necessarily reaching the giddy ubiquity of Japanese cars such as the Mazda MX5.
The new, entry-level update on the MGF retains the original features that made the car seem compellingly unusual in the first place - not least the very prominent studded aluminium petrol cap, which may have done sterling work in opening up the appeal of the car to bikers and S&M fetishists alike.
At the same time, the MGF has been quite radically reshaped and rendered still more attractive. The scooped-out side panels are still there. But the old model used to look ex tremely lumpy around the rear end. The new one appears, by contrast, to have been on the automobile equivalent of a hips and thighs diet, shedding the clunky boot and lending the car an altogether sprucer line.
As with a proper racing car, the MGF is rear-wheel driven and its engine is bolted right behind your head, enabling you to listen to it with proper attentiveness and, on longer journeys, to warm your ears on it, should you wish. The sad thing, in this respect, is that the engine doesn't offer that much to listen to. If you're looking for an anti-social, pedestrian-bothering growl from your sports car, then the MGF is possibly not for you. The engine is as polite as any Rover.
But this is all of a piece with what appears to be the car's central ambition, which is to be a vehicle that feels and performs like an historically grounded sports car, yet doesn't entirely alienate the lucrative middle market which is strongly attracted to Japanese hair-dryers such as the MX5. It's about broadening the fanbase. The old MG driver was a dedicated tinkerer with an oily rag; today's MGF driver could easily be a suited professional who doesn't know what a spark plug is, let alone how to change one.
The compromises inevitably involved in such a project result in, for instance, the high degree of cabin comfort in the MGF. Its stylish yet cosy and ergonomically thoughtful buttons and dials, and its tremendously unflusterable suspension will look suspiciously like pampering to the kind of bare-knuckled purists who don't regard a car as a sports car unless driving it feels like being gaffer-taped to a tin tray. The driving position, too, which is surprisingly upright and saloon-like for a car so close to the ground, will offend those who believe that the correct position from which to pilot a sports car is flat on one's back and six inches above the tarmac.
But as MG-Rover knows, there are plenty who prefer life a little easier. The MGF I drove came in yob red and featured black and red leather seats which looked like something out of Noel Edmonds' wardrobe, circa 1978. Personally I would switch that for the straightforward black leather upholstery and go for paintwork in British racing green, as some kind of homage to the car's roots, though I can see how, for sheer wad-waving wide-boy appeal, the Sienna gold has a lot to recommend it.
Those who have the nostalgia thing really badly can exchange the leather steering wheel for a wooden one. It's made in Italy, I notice. But what the heck.
