there's a bunch of good used ITB cars for sale right now that would be more competative more easily, sooner, and at lower cost than an MGB. leave the old british cars to prod and vintage and save the heartburn.

I can sell you a caged MR2 project car (has all the good bits except the motor, but would come with a running when pulled driveline and good diff) for 2-4k depending on how much of the good parts list you want. thing has a logbook back to the early 90s. there's a guy named Mike Kamelian in macon GA selling a good Mk3 VW with a bunch of spares for 9k. I'm sure the classifieds on this site list dozens more.