MG Car Club Washington, D.C. Centre Retrospective
The year 2000 saw over 50 club events and membership of 220, an all-time high. There were picnics, overnight caravans, lunch rallyes, membership dinners, campouts and tech sessions, among many other activities and events. Annual highlights on the club’s calendar included the awards banquet to honor outstanding members, the Braille Rallye, and the Hunt Country Classic Car Show. The latter part of the 2000s saw an economic downturn that resulted in membership dropping below that 220 member high, a number we have not seen since. For the decade 2011-2020 we averaged 163 members with a slow and steady increase over time to 184 current members in early 2021.
Today, we strive for club activities that cover a wide range of both automotive and social events that combine to create an atmosphere conducive both to learning about and driving our cars, as well as to a spirit of camaraderie among members. While we would like to conduct events “in person,” the aforementioned coronavirus pandemic has affected our ability to do so. Although we cancelled the Hunt Country Classic in 2020, we hosted the Sir Stirling Moss Trophy Virtual British Classic Car Show in 2020. Even though we have been able to plan and conduct a few socially distant “in person” events during the pandemic, the club has embraced the ubiquitous Zoom capability for monthly board meetings, virtual tech sessions, and by the time anyone reads this, we will even have hosted a virtual wine tasting event.
The club is representative and inclusive of not only all MG models, but other British cars as well. In fact it is not necessary to own an MG, a British car, or even any car at all to be a member. As of February 2021 our 184 current members collectively owned 244 cars. As of that count there are 31 As, 124 Bs, 1 C, 4 Magnettes, 25 Midgets (both pre-war and modern), 49 T-Series (8 TCs, 35 TDs, 6 TFs), a few rarer MGs and a mix of other British cars (1 Austin, 1 modern Jaguar, 1 Riley, and 2 Triumph GT6s). Captured in time by decade, our members own 4 cars from the 1930s, 9 from the 1940s, 63 from the 1950s, 50 from the 1960s, 104 from the 1970s, and 14 from 1980 … not the 1980s, just 1980.
