B is for Beauty, B is for Beast
In a surge of power that seemed to have no end, the needle on the tach in front of me rushed past 7,000 rpm in a blur, on its way toward a 9,000-rpm redline. Snicking through the six-speed stick, shifting a couple hundred rpm shy of that lofty redline—rather than taking a chance with bouncing off the rev limiter—I grabbed another gear and the surge of power started all over again.
If this had been a normal 1966 MGB/GT, its BMC B-series likely would have suffered catastrophic failure somewhere not too far north of 6,000 rpm. But this magical little GT was any-thing but a normal MGB.
Under its deliciously black hood, a Honda F20C engine was installed—rather snugly. Some 22 years after that engine debuted in the automaker’s groundbreaking S2000 sports car, the 2.0-liter, twin-cam, 16-valve powerplant remains a mechanical marvel. And that’s exactly what builder Zach Merrill calls the engine under the hood of this GT: “I think it’s a
