Don Charalambous's MGB

Don Charalambous's MGB is Don Challenor's 1973 MGB GT V8, a car whose history and physical presence make it far more than a means of transport. Its familiar leather and engine rumble connect Don to childhood and his father; its continued use expresses loyalty to what he knows and loves, even as its fuel consumption attracts criticism. On the journey that brings him into Blake's orbit, the car carries that attachment into the plot, shaping where the two go and how they get there.

Identity and Material Continuity

The MGB is a 1973 GT V8 that Don has no intention of replacing with a newer or more economical model. Others see his insistence on driving what they regard as a gas-guzzling relic as environmentally irresponsible and as an ultimately futile attempt to recapture his youth. The narration gives the attachment a more intimate basis: the smell of the leather and the rumble of the engine are as familiar to Don as they were when he first rode in the car as a child, with his father at the wheel. His loyalty is therefore not simply to a make of car or an idea of motoring. It is bound to a sensory continuity that reaches back to family memory.

The car is also described in deliberately personal terms. Don pats its tailgate and promises he will not trade it in for a black, dusty, mirror-windowed four-wheel-drive parked nearby. When he introduces it to Blake, he calls it his MG; she teases him about its age and asks what colour it is supposed to be. He proudly answers, “Harvest Gold,” then points out that it is a 1973 model, lucky to have chrome bumpers because those had been phased out by 1975. The exchange gives the vehicle a material specificity—colour, model year, bumpers—while revealing how readily Don speaks for it and takes pride in its details.

A Companion on the Road

In early June, Don drives west from London to carry out a job for Fran Revell. The M3, A303, and A30 make up the long route; he stops at Exeter Services for a Coke and a sandwich, then continues through mid-Devon, across Bodmin Moor, and down into Cornwall. From Helston he heads south past RNAS Culdrose towards Lizard Point. The route is a practical journey, but the narration links it to the car’s deeper meaning: Don values the drive not for cost, comfort, or convenience, but for staying close to what he knows. Leaving London also feels like relief, and Fran’s commission has given him a reason to imagine changing his working life. The car remains the stable companion through that moment of possibility.

That companionship appears in Don’s habits as much as in the long drive. At a service stop he raises the tailgate to make a draught while parked, then addresses the car as “old girl.” Later, when he presents it to Blake, he calls it “She.” The personification is not an isolated joke: it fits the enduring intimacy established by the car’s remembered smell and sound. Don’s refusal to replace it makes a private attachment conspicuous in a world that measures vehicles by economy and environmental impact.

Loyalty and Environmental Tension

Blake makes the environmental objection directly while they are together. She suggests they could walk to the Halzephron Inn along the coast path, only a few miles away on a fine evening, but Don chooses to drive the longer route by the main road. Blake suspects he wants to show off the car and asks whether he feels guilty about damaging the planet by driving such an environmentally unfriendly machine. Don answers that he is loyal and so is the car. His reply turns a question about environmental responsibility into a declaration of mutual fidelity; it is affectionate, but it does not resolve the objection. Blake remains unsure whether this is good news or bad, and sees Don as an anachronism driving an anachronism.

The disagreement gives the MGB an ambivalent role. Its age and fuel use make it a visible emblem of resistance to newer, more economical choices, while its connection to Don’s memories prevents it from being merely a symbol of vanity or waste. The car’s loyalty is a quality Don attributes to it, but the scene also shows how his own loyalty governs his choices: it takes precedence over Blake’s preferred walk and over the environmental criticism she raises. The car thus carries both the comfort of continuity and the cost of refusing change.

The Car as Plot Instrument

After drinking at the inn, Don is sufficiently drunk that Blake refuses to ride back with him. She says she will walk and suggests he leave the car to collect in the morning. Don bristles at what he considers an unnecessary fuss, but the practical outcome is a compromise: they drive only as far as the car park at Church Cove, about half a mile from Poldhu, leave the MGB there, and walk the remaining distance. Blake’s decision changes how the car is used; it takes them part of the way, but it does not carry them all the way home. Don accepts the arrangement as a concession, while continuing to refer to the vehicle as “the old girl.”

The next morning Don descends to Church Cove and finds the MGB waiting in the car park, with a large black four-wheel-drive pulled in beside it. The image recalls his earlier dislike of four-wheel-drives, but now the contrast sits within a more troubling encounter: a bearded man is driving the other vehicle, and Don feels he has little choice but to approach. Later, the driver tells him that the house had been searched the previous night while Don was out drinking with Blake. The car is not presented as the cause of that intrusion, but its role in taking Don away and remaining behind fixes the episode in place. Across the journey, the MGB is at once transport, memory, and a stubbornly physical constant: it carries Don into new circumstances without ceasing to represent the past he refuses to trade in.