MG Sports Cars

The March 2011 issue of Octane magazine has a nice feature on the Costello V8s, including an interview with 82 year-old Ken Costello. Also features three nice examples of the breed.

I met Ken in St.Louis back in 1993 and we've remained in touch ever since.

Great man with a great sense of humour.

82!!! Never would have guessed.

That was a great day out! Ken spent over two hours explaining to editor David Lillywhite about some of his stories and anecdotes - one being how he made one of the leading actors in the movie "Grand Prix" cry. Ken was driving the GT40 camera car at over 120mph which had one the GP cars bolted to it in tow. The actor was trying to "act" as a racing driver would in such a situation (on the Monza banking) but was staring straight into a camera lens barely 3 metres away. Ken was at the wheel.

Andrew Johnson brought along his MGC Costello GT - the only one of the two originals remaining today.
Roger Cook had his 5 litre Wildcat Costello MkII there and my MkI Roadster came along too.

Cheers
Lawrence Wood
mgcostello.com

I met Ken in St. Louis, seems like 2001 or 2003....found him to be a very engaging guy with a great sense of humor....to my surprise, Ken spent a lot of time looking at my 3.1L V6 gt conversion and asking a lot of questions, man was I ever elated!! The high point was when he agreed to sign a firewall plate on the gt....I remember thinking at the time, the great Ken Costello actually has some interest in my car...I could not believe it....




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2013 12:20AM by RMO 699F.

I think we hung out a bit in Terra Haute. Fun guy with a great sense of humor. He was busy at the time with a gearbox design.

Jim

Mike, you were really fortunate to meet him like that, he's always been one of my hero's. I have been a member of the Screen Actors Guild for many years and meet, though not get to know, a lot of celebrities; they tend to loose their charm after a while. Also a few years ago, before I got into the T-Bucket thing, I was in Goleta CA not far from where Moss use to be, checking out a Cobra Shop when Carroll Shelby walked in. He said hello, I said hello, and I was so dumbfounded I wasn't able to muster a sensible conversion. I'm sure he thought I was an idiot, I know I thought so.

Paul