| Where She Came From... | How We Found Her... |
| Like all Magnettes, Miss Daisy, (known to her builders
as KAA 41/34099) was built in Cowley, England. The bodyshell was
produced elsewhere, and delivered to Cowley, where the rest of the car
was assembled.
KAA 41/34099 was originally sold to Donald Eugene Wesley, of Houston, Texas by Autosports, Ltd., of the same city. The title was transferred to Mr. Wesley on April 8th, 1963, so the car had sat on the lot for quite a while, having been delivered in 1959. The last known registration of the car in Texas by Mr. Wesley expired in November of 1983. Upon his death on April 3, 1989, his Will transferred ownership to his wife, making her the second owner. She never registered or drove it. Mrs. Wesley sold the car out of the estate on January 13th, 1992 to Terry Schillay, who (it is believed) made the purchase on behalf of relatives of his, who had the intention of restoring the car and turning a profit by its sale. However, not much progress (if any) was made on the car, and on October 27th, 1999, Mr. Schillay sold the car to us. At that point Miss Daisy had 53,780 miles. According to her serial number, she's a K = MG Magnette
and was the 34,099th Z series Magnette built. That puts her in the last 2,000 Z Magnettes built. |
A few years ago, Marcy decided to take an interest in
this whole "British car thing", just because Chris seemed to enjoy it so.
She discovered that it was populated with unique, fun, lovable, and often
ridiculously generous people.
At one of the first car shows she ever attended, she saw a ZB Magnette. She turned to Chris and said, "If I ever bought an MG, this would be it." Chris was not one to let such a comment go lightly, so he began a surreptitious survey of Magnettes, looking for a "reasonable" one for sale. ("Reasonable" being defined as occupying an appropriate point on a curve where one axis is "Asking Price" and the other is "Work it Needs".) Years, and car shows went by. We attended shows together, went on rallys, placed well in some of them, and generally had a good time. At one show, in Indianapolis, we were pulling into out assigned space for the show, when we noticed an MGA, and MGB, and an MGC, all with Ohio plates. In fact the owners all lived within 15 minutes of our house! (What are the odds of that in a "random placement" show!) We got to know Jay and Debbie, Everett and Jean, and Ken and Loraine. We spent time together as a group, and Marcy noticed that the women were having as much fun as the guys. We hung out together at following shows, until, while driving back from another show in Indianapolis, Marcy said, "If I knew I could drive one comfortably, I think I'd want a Magnette." (Marcy is petite, so getting to pedals and seeing over high dashboards can be an issue.) Having been scanning the Magnette world for a while now, it only took a few days to get in touch with Jeff Arendas, and ask if we could come up to see if Marcy could fit behind the wheel of a Magnette. Jeff said, "Sure, but if she fits, it's gonna cost you!" Jeff not only let Marcy sit in his beautifully restored Magnette, he let her drive it. That was it. We were both totally hooked. It took about 4 weeks to find Miss Daisy in Houston, Texas, and another few weeks to get her paid for, and from there to Columbus, Ohio. |