WIVES always complain it takes their husband ages to fix anything.

But Graham Dix’s family are finally celebrating after it took him almost 30 years of painstaking labour to restore his beloved MG convertible.

Mr Dix was just 22 when the MGB he had owned for two years broke down and had to be taken off the road in 1981.

Now after 29 years of tinkering and about £6,000 worth of repair and restoration work, Mr Dix is finally able to take his long-suffering wife Beverley and their daughters Laura and Aimee out for spins in his blue two-seater sports car.

It was certainly not a Kwik Fit when Mr Dix, a police inspector from Abingdon, decided to overhaul the un-reliable car he bought for £300 in 1979.

Repairing the classic motor over the past three decades has been a family affair, with Mr Dix sometimes calling his daughters out of bed to assist him.

Laura, 23, said: “It has been the bane of our lives, him constantly out there banging about, us having to get out of bed in pyjamas and hold engine parts and press brakes and push the car around without the engine. All my living memory has been filled with that blooming car!.

“I never really had that much interest in it, but Dad took us out in it the other day.

“It was amazing and looks fantastic.”

Mrs Dix, 50, said: “It has been frustrating when he’s out there and comes back filthy and dirty or was rebuilding bits on my kitchen table.

“I think he’s driven the neighbours mad with all the banging, but it’s been worth it – he’s so proud of it.”

Mr Dix, a former apprentice engineer at the Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell, fixed the engine in 1985, but has spent the past 25 years overhauling the car and saving up for new parts.

The 51-year-old said: “It’s a really frustrating thing to do.

“I have taken apart and reassembled almost every nut and bolt.

“I gave up at one point and almost got round to selling it, but the guy did not want it because the car needed so much doing to it. I thank my family for bearing with me talking about MGs far too much and spending hours out there when I could have been gardening, decorating or doing something more useful.

“I had the car before I met my wife, so she’s always had to take second place to it, I’m afraid!”

After rebuilding the vehicle Mr Dix is keen to trace its original owner, John Duncan Griffiths. He was a squadron leader formerly based in Cornwall who sold the vehicle in Oxfordshire. He is hopeful Mr Griffiths lives or has relatives in the county.

After finishing the mammoth project Mr Dix is thinking of buying another two old cars and fixing them up to hire out for weddings when he retires in two years.

Mrs Dix said: “I hope he gets those cars finished more quickly or he’ll be under the ground before he gets use of them.”