The Frontline MGA is the World's Coolest, Fastest, Most Fun—and Expensive—Miata

Motor Trend

23-05-2025

The original MG (not today's Chinese-backed version) may have been a British brand, but America made it. Thousands of service members returning from Europe after the end of World War II in 1945 brought with them an abiding affection for the light and fun-to-drive MG sports cars they'd seen on British roads. And when broken, bankrupted Britain switched back to making cars and trucks instead of fighter planes and tanks, MG, encouraged by a government desperate for export revenues, found a ready market stateside for its perky little TC roadster.
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The TC and its successors, the TD and TF, were vintage 1930s-style cars, body-on-frame with a leaf-spring live rear axle and, until the TD was launched in 1950, a live front axle. They sold well, but by 1955 the MG TF was looking decidedly old-fashioned alongside rival sports cars such as the Austin-Healey 100 and Triumph TR2. Enter the MGA. The low-slung MGA was still a body-on-frame car with a leaf-spring live rear axle—and a wooden floor!—but it looked modern, with streamlined, faired-in bodywork styled by MG's chief designer Syd Enever that was inspired by the rebodied TD roadster he had developed in 1951 for the Le Mans 24 Hour race.
America fell in love with the MGA. Of the 101,000 cars that rolled off the MG assembly line in Abingdon, England, between late 1955 and July 1962, more than 81,000 were shipped to the U.S. (The Brits bought fewer than 5,900 MGAs over the same period.) Affordable and easily tuned, the MGA proved popular on the track, too, becoming a mainstay in SCCA racing during the '50s and early '60s.
The MGA was replaced in 1962 by the MGB, the company's first unibody sports car. And the love affair continued. More than half a million were built, with more than 300,000 sold in the U.S. through 1980, when British Leyland execs stupidly ordered the MGB be discontinued in a bid to boost slow sales of the newer Triumph TR7. Without a car to sell in the market that had so long sustained it, the MG marque abruptly vanished from the U.S., never to return.
But the love affair still lingers. For some years now British MG restomod and restoration specialist Frontline Cars has been doing good business in the U.S. with reworked MGBs such the four-cylinder MGB LE50 and the recently launched LE60, which is powered by a Frontline-tweaked V-8 that punches out 375 hp and will take it to 160 mph. Now it's adding a delectable MGA to its restomod lineup.
'The MGA was the natural next step for us,' said Tim Fenna, founder and chief engineer of Frontline Cars. 'It's an icon of British motoring, but one that was always crying out for more performance and refinement.'
Established, High-End British Restomod Formula
The Frontline MGA follows the formula established with the company's long line of MGB restomods, combining a modern powertrain, plus suspension and chassis mods designed by Fenna, with subtly reworked sheetmetal and upscale interior hardware to create a sports car that combines classic style with everyday drivability.
Frontline will find a suitable MGA donor car for you, or you can supply one yourself, be it left- or right-hand drive, roadster or coupe. The donor car is stripped back to bare metal and boxes of parts. The chassis is strengthened and fitted with a redesigned front suspension that features Nitron telescopic shocks and fabricated upper links in place of the vintage lever-arm shocks that were standard on the original MGA. The original MGA leaf-sprung banjo rear axle is junked in favor of a late-model MGB unit that's been modified to accommodate coil springs and Nitron shocks and is located by upper and lower trailing links each side, and a Panhard rod.
Other chassis upgrades, using hardware and know-how from Frontline's long experience with MGB restomods, include the fitment of disc brakes all round, the front rotors vented and clamped by four-piston calipers, and electronic rack-and-pinion steering. Customers can choose between traditional-style 15-inch wire wheels or ultra-cool 15-inch Dunlop alloys that look like the wheels fitted to Jaguar's D-Type and Lightweight E-Type racers during the 1950s and '60s. Standard tires are 185/65 Bridgestone Turanzas.
The MG powertrain is replaced by a naturally aspirated Mazda four-cylinder engine and five-speed manual transmission. Two specifications are available: a 2.0-liter that develops 225 hp at 7,200 rpm and 178 lb-ft of torque at 4,500 rpm, and a 2.5-liter unit that develops 290 hp at 7,100 rpm and 243 lb-ft at 4,200 rpm.
Each engine features a bespoke individual throttle body induction system, revised camshaft profiles, a new ECU, and a tuned stainless steel exhaust system. The 2.5-liter engine's balance shaft has been removed to reduce frictional losses and improve throttle response. For context, the original MGA was powered by a 68-hp 1.5-liter engine, and even the temperamental and short-lived 1.6-liter twin-cam engine introduced in 1958 still made only 108 hp.
All the mechanical hardware is topped with a body that retains its stock dimensions but has been carefully reworked to improve its structural rigidity, primarily by way of the addition of a steel floor that now tightly ties together the bodysides. Detail changes include the removal of the front turn signals—they are now located within the modern LED headlight units—and the deletion of the octagonal MG badge from the trunk. Look closely, and you'll also see discreet Frontline badging near the vents either side of the narrow hood, but otherwise the Frontline MGA looks just like a beautifully restored original car.
A quick look in the sumptuously trimmed cockpit—customers can choose between leather or Alcantara, the trim work all done in-house at Frontline—hints at the truth. The dash features Frontline-branded Smiths dials, and there's an audio system with two speakers, two tweeters, an amplifier, and a Bluetooth module all controlled by a discreetly hidden head unit. Options include heated versions of Frontline's own-design bucket seats, as well as air conditioning. One-touch electric windows are available on the coupé.
Meshing Old- and New-School Driving
Our tester, the first Frontline MGA built, was fitted with the 2.0-liter engine and a relatively tall 3.07 diff rather than the 3.4 or 3.7 gears typically used in the Frontline MGBs because the owner wanted the car to feel relaxed while cruising. And relaxed it is: At 50 mph in fifth gear, the little Mazda four-banger, which will rev enthusiastically to 7,750 rpm, is turning just 2,000 rpm. It sounds crisp and gurgly when you take it through the gears, a digitally remastered version of an old-school British performance four-cylinder engine. And though the Mazda four has much more top-end bite than any of those old British motors, it has a similarly solid swathe of midrange torque you can exploit with the transmission's tightly packed ratios.
The modern powertrain weighs 132 pounds less than the vintage MG hardware, which not only takes weight off the front axle, but also means the Frontline MGA tips the scales at under 2,000 pounds. So, despite its tall diff ratio, our tester felt marvelously alive on British B-roads, easily scooting to 80 or 90 mph between the corners.
The ride is tightly controlled, but it's not harsh, thanks to the deft manner with which the Nitron shocks deal with sharp inputs and the absorptive quality of those generously sidewalled tires. The EPS assists up to about 30 mph, then drops away. Feel and feedback through the steering wheel rim is terrific. You can have manual steering if you want. But don't bother. It'll only make you work harder at low speeds.
Like all old-school rear-drive sports cars, the Frontline MGA likes to be braked in a straight line, then turned into a late apex as you get on the throttle. Get too ambitious with your right foot, though, and the abundant traction from the standard Quaife limited-slip differential will push the nose wide. Brake feel is very good, and the well-placed pedals, combined with the beautifully crisp throttle response and the short throws of the transmission, make heel-toe downshifts a breeze.
Throwback Look, Modern, Miata-Like Feel
What stands out, however, is how taut and tight the Frontline MGA feels. There's no scuttle shake—none—and no vibration back through the steering. Suspension noise and impact harshness are extremely well suppressed. Although it's very light and has a live rear axle, the car feels astonishingly planted and composed, even on indifferent roads. Make no mistake, the Frontline MGA is a truly stunning piece of work; there are modern sports cars that don't feel as coherent to drive as this MG. Ironically, given its powertrain, the nearest modern car we can compare it with for sheer fun and driver involvement is the Mazda MX-5 Miata roadster, a car that's 1.9 inches shorter than the Frontline MGA, with a 3.1-inch-shorter wheelbase, but fully 10 inches wider and almost 400 pounds heavier.
The Miata comparison provides extra useful context, too: The little Mazda delivers its thrills with just 181 hp under the hood, and after our drive of the 225-hp 2.0-liter Frontline MGA, we're not sure the 290-hp 2.5-liter engine is worth the extra money.
The math is compelling. Frontline says the 2.0-liter car takes just 4.8 seconds to sprint to 60 mph (the MX-5 Miata takes 5.6 seconds). According to Frontline's own numbers, that makes it just seven-tenths of a second slower than the 2.5-liter version, and both models have a top speed of 155 mph. So there's not much of a performance advantage, and we suspect the bigger engine's extra power and torque could make the Frontline MGA, which has neither traction control nor ABS, a bit of a handful, especially on a wet road. The 2.0-liter model feels the sweet-spot car.
Frontline MGA prices start at the equivalent of about $170,000 (on current exchange rates) plus taxes and shipping and the cost of a donor car. No, it's nowhere near as affordable as the original. But the Frontline MGA, sharper and quicker, tauter and tighter, better built and more highly equipped than any MGA that ever left the factory in Abingdon, England, is a bespoke sports car, and not just in terms of color and trim. Frontline will work with customers on mechanical hardware like diff ratios and suspension tune and steering to create exactly the MGA they want.
The Frontline MGA is a truly outstanding restomod, easily one of the best we've ever driven. It has modern manners that allow it to be used every day, but it remains joyously analog, a pure driver's car that's thoroughly engaging at real-world speeds on real-world roads. Think of it this way: What Singer is to Porsche, Frontline is to MG. It's expensive, but it's worth the money.