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Man Maths: MG ZT 260
3 months ago
The V8 ZT was comprehensively reengineered to be RWD
I’ve probably laughed more than when chasing Reid around Mallory Park in a brace of ZT 260s, but I can’t remember when and certainly not ever while sober. Each corner required the same approach: the merest suggestion of an input in one direction, followed by a frantic blur of arms in the other direction as you and the V8 engaged in unarmed combat at the outer limit of what the steering rack would accept. A few laps of this where the most likely reason for losing control of the car was losing control of yourself, and we returned to the pits, both exiting unable to speak for some considerable time. I like to think there were tears rolling down Anthony’s cheeks, but it was probably just the rain.
An experience like that never leaves you, and is more than capable of clouding certain salient points, like that the ZT 260 really wasn’t a very good car at all. The V8 may have had 4.6 litres but so too was it straight from the Ford’s part bin and bog standard, with the 260bhp alluded to in its title not so great an increase on the V6 ZT’s 190bhp, particularly when you consider the extra 200kg it also had to carry. Its thirst was prodigious, its ride not very good and there was nowhere to put your left leg because the bellhousing got in the way.
But Man Maths is not to be troubled by such inconvenient truths. Man Maths just remembers Mallory and a mad man and wants to have that experience again. Deep down he knows that were it even possible it would never be so good because the novelty has long since been and gone, but it doesn’t stop him furtively reaching for the classifieds and discovering you can still buy one for a four-figure sum, almost certainly a catastrophically bad idea.
But what about one of just 11 fitted with a Roush supercharger making not 260 but 385bhp? Yours now for £16,000. But I fear I might actually die laughing. Then again, what a way to go.
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