Have a few friends with MGs, but never owned one myself.

I was saddened to see the company go out of business last year. It barely made the news in the U.S. since it's been decades since they were still sold here, but they were still sold elsewhere in the world. Some of their recent cars even used Ford Mustang V8s under the hood and would have been easy to certify for American sale. I would have liked one.

Why not get an older MGB to fix up? They really are an easy car to work on and there is alot of helpful forums on the net if you get stuck on something. Plus they still are making parts for them.

I'm an old mg owner.
Have an old 1980, final goodbye year, mgb limited edition sitting here that I bought new from a dealer.
Bought/sold/drove/fixed a whole bunch of MB Midgets.
Fun cars - cheap, if you know how to spin a spanner under your bonnet.

We have a 1979 MGB. Of course we are scheduled to put it in a show this weekend and the darn thing has begun to sputter so bad we can barely get it out of the driveway! So it looks like the show maybe out.

i used to have an mgb, it was a fun car, then the miata came on the scene, same fun, none of the problems. so now i have a miata.

Well, it's 07' now and we missed ANOTHER show because the car is not running right!! Wow these cars have problems. I see them all the time out on the road though. We just might have gotten one that needs a lot of work. Since funds are short right now, as usual, it has a nice home in the garage! Maybe we will make it to that show yet....some day!!! I hope.....

Some of the MGs made in the 1950s and maybe up into the 1960s had a rear axle breakage problem. An associate of mine at work got rid of his MG after breaking the third axle, and he did not abuse the car. The last axle broke while he was backing his car out of the driveway.

The problem was traced to the steel alloy used for the axle. This particular alloy went through a phase change at 20 F. Above 20 F, it was ok, but became extremely brittle below 20 F. Also, it was vulnerable while going through the phase change.

My ex has an MG. Cute little yellow thing that used to belong to his father. I think he's looking to sell it.

MG Axles - I busted many & helped change a few with other BMC/Leyland cars too.

I'm no expert...
Possibly the cold you mention may start the event - in my opinion anyhow thats not the cause. I've seen other car axles that have worked perfectly well with surface crazing, which probably would start the failure mode in a mg.

Its not what I would call a brittle break - its a twisted off break.
Maybe 95% of the center section of the metal looks somewhat like both ends were stuck in a pencil sharpener. Twisted off.
Appears as a soft grainy metal center that wasnt ever fully molten with an outer normal hard metal surface-skin.

Apparently, the steel alloy for those particular axles was chosen for machinability and ease of manfacturability. No thought was given to the attribute that the alloy had a transition temperature of 20 F. It was subject to crack initiation below 20 F and especially if it was undergoing alternating loading while passing through the transition temperature. Once a crack was initiated, it was only a matter of time and load cycles for crack growth. When enough of the cross section has weakened, then the remaining section experiences failure. This failure may be ductile. The ductile break can occur quickly in only a few load cycles or in one loading above the average loading such as hitting a bump in the road.

A point on the surface of the axle in the critically loaded zone of an axle experiences alternating stress from compression to tension as the axle rotates. When this point is on top, it is in compression and when it is on bottom, it is in tension. In addition to these stresses, is has shear stress from torque. And then, other stress loadings occur from end loads from cornering with the maximum happening if the wheel encounteres something that greatly increases the end load (and moment) such as stubbing against the edge of a hole while sliding sideways or worse yet, striking a curb.