Customer Car: The MG ZS 110 That Left Longbridge The Week It All Stopped
Customer car, as told to Cameron
We put a short piece up at the start of the month about an MG ZS that turned up in our inbox wearing a pair of Sabelt GT3s. It was two photographs and a paragraph, and it bothered me slightly, because you could tell there was a lot more car behind it than we had written about.
So I went back to the owner and asked. What came back was a folder of fifty photographs going back to the day he collected it, every single one dated and labelled, and a couple of thousand words explaining the lot. It is the most complete thing anybody has ever sent this page, and it is a great deal more interesting than the seats we sold him.
- A 2005 MG ZS+ 110 saloon in XPower Grey, bought in May 2024
- The owner reckons it came off the line the week MG Rover went under
- Fourth MG in the household, after his ZR 105 and his dad’s ZR 120 and ZS 120
- Head gasket and a new cylinder head inside his first two months of ownership
- Sabelt GT3 seats and Corbeau harnesses, on brackets he fabricated himself
- Bilstein shocks and Eibach springs sat in their boxes since February, waiting their turn
- A forged turbo K Series and a custom ratio PG1 are the long game
A Rover in a tracksuit
It is a 2005 ZS+ 110 saloon in XPower Grey, and the owner reckons it came off the line the week MG Rover went under. Whether the paperwork bears that out or not, it is a lovely thing to know about your own car, and it explains the pilgrimages in the folder: the Longbridge factory site in August 2024, Abingdon the same weekend, Pride of Longbridge this April.
He bought it in May 2024 and it is the fourth MG in the household. He had a ZR 105 before it. His dad ran a ZR 120 and then a ZS 120. So this was never going to be a sensible purchase and nobody involved pretends otherwise.
His own description is the best line anybody has sent us all year. For a 21 year old Rover in a tracksuit, he says, it is incredibly fun to drive around in. On the roads of the south west it reacts as you expect and takes a good load of abuse. It just needs fettling to make it better.
What he actually bought
Quite rough, in his words. The photographs from collection day back that up: straight enough, sitting well, and clearly a car that had been owned rather than looked after. Everything since has been the slow business of undoing what twenty years of other people did to it.
Two years on it is quite nice, minus what he calls the mildly ropey paintwork. He is being hard on it.
Left, collection day, 18 May 2024. Right, the same car this August. Everything below happened in between, and he photographed all of it.
First job: somebody had been at the wiring
The body control unit loom had been hacked to pieces by somebody before him. Not tidily modified. Cut, twisted, taped, and left.
He repaired it himself, got full functionality back across the car and had two new key fobs programmed in. The folder has two photographs of it from the same day in August 2024, labelled trying to restore the BCU loom and then kind of restored the BCU loom, which is a fair summary of how electrical jobs go.
The file marked BCU repaired is dated the following February. Six months between kind of and repaired. Anybody who has chased a wiring fault will know exactly what happened in that gap.
Left, what he inherited. Right, the day everything worked again, lights and all. Six months apart.
Then the bit everyone expects
He had owned it about eight weeks when the head gasket went. Of course it did.
The folder tracks it almost daily: head off on 13 July 2024, a new cylinder head on the 15th, the new head fitted on the 21st. Eight days, at home, on his first serious job on the car.
A year later came the part that tells you he has actually read up on these: a stainless coolant rail. If you know the K Series you know why that is on the list, and you know it is the difference between an engine with a reputation and an engine that stays together. A custom manifold followed in April this year.
Left, the stainless coolant rail, August 2025. Right, the custom manifold, April 2026. Neither is a bolt on for show.
And then everything else
This is the part I most wanted to ask about, because it is what owning a twenty year old car actually is, and nobody photographs it for Instagram. He photographed all of it.
Every disc and pad, because they had not been changed in at least a decade. A whole fuel tank, prepped in April and swapped in May this year, because the old one had a hole in it. New headlight units in February, and the comparison photograph of the yellowed original next to the clear replacement is the single most satisfying image in the folder. An exhaust heat shield. New vents. A stuck thermostat in March that gave him his first breakdown.
Then in July the clutch let go. Photographed on the 2nd, replaced on the 5th. Three days, in his own garage.
He describes all of this as really not exciting tasks. He is right, and it is also exactly why the car is still on the road and still being driven properly.
Left, twenty years of UV against a fresh lamp. Right, the clutch, on the floor, three days before the new one went in.
He taught himself
Between the old ZR and this one he has learned to repair and maintain them from scratch, and says he is still expanding what he can do. That is how most of the good cars in the paddock happen.
His garage, or a mate’s
The only workshop this car sees is his own, or occasionally a friend’s when he is really stuck. Two years of work, almost none of it paid for in labour.
The boring jobs first
Loom, head gasket, brakes, tank, clutch. All of it had to happen before any of the good bits were worth doing, and he did them in that order.
Making it his
August 2025 was the interior. Out came the lot, and the headliner board got rewrapped and relined at home, which in the photographs means balanced across the washing machine in the utility room. Every one of us has done something like this and pretended we had a workshop.
Before that, in November 2024, he collected a set of alcantara trimmed seats and fitted those. They are lovely, and they are what was in the car right up until the buckets went in this August.
There is also a proper little saga across January and February 2025 about a boot lip spoiler: test fitted on the 25th of January, prepped and painted on the 2nd of February, fitted on the 9th along with a set of new badges. Two weeks of faff for a strip of plastic, and it looks right, so it was worth it.
Left, the alcantara seats that lived in it for eighteen months. Right, the lip spoiler being test fitted, taped and clamped, January 2025.
Our bit of it
A pair of Sabelt GT3s and a pair of Corbeau three point retractable harnesses, which is a sensible combination on a car that does shows, road miles and the occasional circuit. The standard belts keep working for the daily stuff and the harness adds the strapped in feel when it matters.
Nobody makes a seat frame for an MG ZS. We checked our own shelves when the first photographs came in and the answer was none, so he did the only thing available and fabricated his own brackets to sit under universal side mounts. The folder has the test fit and the final fit a day apart, which tells you he got it right first time.
There is more on the kit itself, and on the side mount route for cars the catalogue has never heard of, in the piece we wrote when the photographs first landed.
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Those three are what is in this car. They are examples from a much bigger shelf, and the rest of the Sabelt range is in the Sabelt seats category if you are pricing up something similar.
What happens next
Most of the work still to come is underneath, and he is part collecting for it. The Bilstein shocks and Eibach springs, both built to original specification, have been sat in their boxes since February. Once the rest is gathered the car comes apart and the whole suspension goes back together on a mix of polybush, standard bush and PCI bushes.
Waiting on the parts before you start is the correct way round and almost nobody does it.
Then the engine. He is sticking with the K Series, and the long game after the suspension is a forged turbo K Series with a custom ratio PG1 behind it.
His reason is the best part of the whole email: he wants to help prove it is not a bad engine if it is treated right. Anybody who has argued about head gaskets in a pub for twenty years knows exactly what he means, and he has already done the gasket, the head and the coolant rail on this one, so he is arguing from experience.
The first forged part turned up in May. A rod and a set of ARP bolts. That is how these things start.
Where it has been
It got detailed for its first show in July 2024, about a fortnight after the head went back on, which is the right attitude. Shows in the Midlands and on the south coast. A charity show at JDM Garage that August.
Milton Keynes in November 2024, for a rave, which is not a sentence we get to write about many project cars. And the Lydden Hill Legends festival this June, where he camped in it. His verdict on the ZS as accommodation was good, and uncomfortable, which is about what two bucket seats and a saloon boot will get you.
One more thing. There is a photograph in the folder dated August 2024 and labelled only BMW rescue. It shows a grey saloon on the back of a flatbed. I have decided not to ask which way round that went.
Left, detailed for its first show in July 2024, on red calipers. Right, Lydden Hill this June. The calipers are green now, repainted with the new brakes in April.
That is the thing about this one, and the reason it was worth going back and asking. It is not a trailer queen and it is not a garage ornament. It gets driven to the south coast, to the Midlands, to circuits, and to a nightclub in Buckinghamshire.
A car that is being properly rebuilt underneath and used every weekend at the same time is a harder trick than either one on its own.
If it goes further
Here is the rare treat for ZS owners, and part of why Garreth likes this car so much. SW Motorsports build a bolt in half cage specifically for the ZS, as a kit and as a fully built version, which is more off the shelf support than most cars of this age get.
For a saloon that keeps seeing circuits it is the natural next step after seats and belts. No rush, mind. The suspension and the engine are in front of it in the queue, and he knows the order he wants to do things in better than we do.
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Questions this one prompts
Is there a seat frame for an MG ZS?
No, and we have looked properly. Nobody makes a car specific frame for one. The route is universal side mounts and brackets made to suit, which is what this owner did. Ring us before you cut anything and we will talk through what the brackets need to pick up.
What seats are in it?
A pair of Sabelt GT3s, the fibreglass FIA bucket, with Corbeau three point retractable harnesses over them. Both are carded above.
Is the K Series really that bad?
Its owner would say no, and he has done the gasket, the head and a stainless coolant rail on this one, so he is better placed to argue it than most. The plan is a forged turbo version to make the point properly.
Is a ZS actually a good base for this?
Garreth has been saying so for years. They are cheap, simple to work on, the chassis was always better than the badge suggested, and almost nobody builds them. The money goes on the parts instead of on the purchase.
Will you feature my car?
Gladly, and we would rather have the story than just the photographs. This owner sent a dated folder going back to collection day and it made the whole thing writable. Send both to the address on the contact page.
Thanks for the write up
To the owner: thank you, genuinely. Most people send two photographs. You sent two years of receipts, in order, including the bits that went wrong, which is the half most people leave out.
His own summary is hard to improve on. It is better than when he bought it and it keeps improving the more money goes at it, and the factory fit silly spoiler and body kit still make him smile.
If you are building something the catalogue has never heard of, ring the showroom on 0115 9893488 and ask for Cameron. Garreth will argue for the unusual choice every time.