NEW Frontline MGB Restomod With 350hp V8! FIRST DRIVE Review

i've been fortunate enough to be around some pretty bespoke cars in my time but never have i seen a feature like this so the clock in this car actually rewinds time it's the only way i could express it really the clock goes backwards the only way i can demonstrate this is by pressing this button and sure enough we're going back in the future here it's pretty look at that we have a backwards clock in here [Music] you know that saying of uh going out for a drive and getting the wind in your hair well i've had some pretty stunning driving experiences of late but this epitomizes the quintessential lightweight british sports car top down wind in your hair going for a drive just for the sake of going for a drive and welcome to the frontline developments mgb this is where things get exciting v8 now this thing let's just uh touch on its characteristics before we uh immerse you in what it's like to drive but honestly the beauty of the resto mod series and this car epitomizes basically all of this is size weight power beauty in important balance and equal measure so this car is very small we find ourselves conveniently on a beautiful windy british bee road so as you're threading it through these towns and villages not only is it uh greatly welcomed by people who just so happen to be walking through the village there's a lot of like-minded acknowledgement that you're in something cute and quite special but also it's small it's compact so as i'm threading through cars parked on the side of what is effectively a 600 year old village there was certainly planned for horse and carts not for big supercars i mean i've driven this exact stretch of road quite a few times i mean i've got a tractor coming past me right now and for the first time in a long time i'm not having to breathe in and hope for the best i'm just able to swan on through gracefully and then when cyclists see me they're not annoyed at my exhaust system because the client of this car has had it developed to his specific wish to sound fruity but not obnoxious and they've done a great job of that despite the fact that it has a 350 horsepower v8 sat in the front here but it's also light in its v8 format this car is weighing just 960 kilograms those are not figures that even enter the realms of modern day performance cars and with 350 horsepower little weights light narrow body when you drop cog in this thing well i'm sure you can see by the state of my hair this thing does not hang around are the pedal placements the heavy box because it's developing so much more horsepower than an mgb should ever be capable of developing this car is everything that the rest of mod series is all about taking a beautiful icon and improving and reimagining areas which let's not beat around the bush original mgbs i mean mgb's actually weren't that bad it was the mgcs which were c for well you interpret what the c was for but it was c for compromised handling um this car everything has been redeveloped suspension tweaks i'm on a stretch of road i know all too well and the road surface here is for once of a better word absolutely diabolical and this thing is riding it gracefully uprated five-speed tremec gearbox and it's got such a heavy but positive throw about it so when you're interacting with it every engagement really feels like you're doing something you're interacting with it but what's interesting about this car is because it's packing a 350 horsepower v8 it backs it up with right foot smile and juicing behaviors like so and when it gets up when it builds up on that cam you can see straight away it's like the is directly connected to my smile glands they are intrinsically linked you drop cog and all of a sudden you see the width of your mouth begins to articulate as the valves open up it's just a fabulous little thing i will say that these seats when i say have been developed for the customer have quite literally been sculpted and contoured for the requirements of the owner of this car which i think that's something else when it comes to a resto mod it doesn't have to be true to the authenticity of the original car you can tweak it how you want you can do whatever you want now while this thing has retained a lot of the authenticity of an mgb you know it only takes a few hundred yards to realize that this quite frankly is not an mgb it's a completely different beast it's got beautiful calibration of power steering yet there's still a lovely weight to it i'm actually sat right now in would you believe it heated seats what it has retained is the character but what it has evolved is the dynamics of it like you're not afraid to throw this thing into a corner the load that you can put through it before it lets go when it does let go it lets go in a friendly way it's so nice on a day like today pretty special place to be all right so we're back at the bunker now if you've watched the western mod series before you'll know that we typically start in here first give you a walk and talk of all of the sexy bits and then take you out for a drive however i felt it quite important to go out in this thing first because i was assured by frontline developments that this is not your standard mg and i can confidently tell you as you've just seen by the onboard uh this thing's in its own world it's a completely different experience but now you've seen the drive um i think what i'm about to show you will unfold um a completely different appreciation of what this car and what this company is all about because it's not until you quite literally get under the hood of this thing that it paints an entirely different picture but just quickly uh to recap from the start um 4.1 litre v8 uh beautiful naturally aspirated tone this particular car is running 350 brake horsepower but frontline tell me they're capable of over 500 horsepower um in this particular setup it's weighing 960 kilograms to try and convey that power to weight is quite hard but if you rewind you'll see what the grin on my face was doing at that point and this thing only has 350 i should say only it's absolutely incredible uh this car has built more of a sort of gt profile of drive so even though it's got plenty of legs what's phenomenal about it is how much torque it's gone because it's so lightweight everything about it is so effortless and that fifth drive is a sort of much longer geared gt gear so once you uh cross over into the continent and you want to get on those auto routes it's a much more of a sort of easy effortless drive anyway let's open up this hood and show you the engine and then we'll show you the particular details which have been quite literally personalized to this car because once the story of this unfolds and even details on the color details in the boot some really intrinsic things here okay so we're gonna reach in here this is where you open the bonnet close this so check this thing out you're not gonna believe what's under here if you're familiar with the uh the engine bay of an mgb you'll appreciate how this thing looks now it's absolutely remarkable i think one thing i would say before we dive into the significance of this engine is for me this gold paint and this engine bay here acts as a frame for as far as i'm concerned a piece of artwork it's absolutely stunning i mean the car as it sits is kind of in our lounge here and i just rock it like that it looks so beautiful so what we like to do on this channel as the audience likes to uh joke with me about quite regularly is to set a spot of context now what is amazing about this is just the plenum here the headers the machining of this takes an entire week just for this section here and i think when we start to set context about components like that it makes you look at the entire car differently every component for example the bodywork over 300 hours in the body not the chassis or anything like that just the body before the paintwork so these guys put so much man-hours care attention and detail into things now speaking of detail you might look in this engine bay and go why does this look so good it's not just because it's shiny you'll notice a complete lack of pipes tubes wires front line have something called a deadhead fuel system that effectively allows them to tuck anything that would otherwise be exposed in a conventional car underneath around the back so you don't see it so when you stare in here it's just beautiful polished v8 goodness and because i've driven it first you don't need to take my word from it you've heard this thing you've seen how it pulls it looks as great as it goes and it looks bloody good okay so speaking of custom there's no such thing as an off-the-shelf front-line development mg mgb no more has that been a more prominent example than the paintwork on this car and i'm not sure if the camera's doing it justice but it has this sort of stunning gold fleck in it it wasn't until it was pointed out to me that this is actually the color of the client's stratocaster guitar and when you see the overall theme of this i mean it even follows through looking onto the dashboard which is super cool in here this storage unit here is lined with the same color and material as the guitar box that his stratocaster sits in which is very very cool and it doesn't stop there the same lining is on the inside as well of the boot look at that isn't that cool and i think it's not until these details are pointed out to you that you realize when front lines say this is a a custom build or a bespoke project it's on a different level if you say actually i would like the same interior as my guitar case and my boots and the paint on my dashboard very cool indeed you'll also notice mgbs generally don't rock sound systems like that so you can really build these things as you want all right let's jump back into the interior it's such a beautiful place to be it's funny that it fits me so well because these seats have quite literally been custom made to the client what i mean by that is he sat in the seat for several hours and had it molded and fitted specifically to his derriere so seems like mine and his arm far off actually but it's a beautiful place to be but now i've been able to sit in the car while it's stationary you can really take on board all of the minute attention to detail including this white wheel here now the actual steering wheel itself is off the original car so this is a 60s wheel but this white taping here is handlebar tape for bicycles so this was actually supplied by the client themselves so this is the level you can go to basically if you can think of it and it's achievable frontline will do it for you not this is a big thing but i really like that he specifically wanted bike tape on his wheel there's something about it as well i just think it seems to work and while the majority of this car is pretty much ground up fresh nuts and bolts they also have a 60s gear shifter here and i think it's added that lovely touch of original authenticity about it it's very cool i've been fortunate enough to be around some pretty bespoke cars in my time but never have i seen a feature like this so the clock in this car actually rewinds time it's the only way i can express it really the clock goes backwards the only way i can demonstrate this is by pressing this button and sure enough we're going back in the future here it's pretty look at that we have a backwards clock in here story goes client has one in his other car and quite liked it so here we are when i said frontline i'll do anything for you they will do anything for you isn't that nuts it's quite cool also you might have noticed that the belts too have been incredibly well matched to the shade of the leather it's not until you start pointing out all of these subtle things or not so subtle things that um yeah it paints a completely different picture of the options available on these cars all right that's it uh big thank you to frontline developments for bringing this beautiful car down uh hopefully we're gonna stop by their shop in the coming weeks and uh give you guys a walk and talk of the amazing amount of work that goes into these things so if you have any questions leave it in the comments below as always thanks so much for watching and i shall see you next time [Music] ciao [Music] you

Channel: Mr JWW

Views: 78,421

Rating: 4.9079676 out of 5

Keywords: MrJWW, Mr, JWW, cars, supercars, supercar, MGB, V8

Id: ihy6i21ZHaU

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 25 2021