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It looked like fun to
drive. It was! It was the MG-TC, newly imported from England, a
thoroughbred machine, the latest in a long line of sports-racing
cars. The snappy performance, plus the modest price, re-introduced
America to the sports car.
A car with initials for its
name? To a country accustomed to the sonorous ring of Deusenberg
and Cadillac, the smooth flowing syllables of Chevrolet and
Locomobile, and the hard, clean sound of Stutz and Ford, the lean
initials MG, encased in their octagon, were quite strange. In 1912
William R. Morris (there's the M), a former bicycle maker, formed
a company called Morris Motors Limited. A subsidiary corporation
was named The Morris Garages (now you have the G) . But it was not
until 1923 that the initials were placed on the radiator of a car.
The first MG was built
because of a need, a need that was sensed intuitively by Cecil
Kimber, general manager of Morris Garages. He felt that the public
wanted a small, but high-performance sporting machine that could
be driven sedately on the roads during the week and raced on
Sundays. But the most important point was that it be priced
modestly. Not everyone could afford a Bentley or Mercedes, but a
little MG would fit the pocketbook, perform as a commuting car,
and with a quick change of sparkplugs make a hero of its owner on
the weekend. This concept fits practically every production MG
from the first midget to the modern streamlined MGA.
In 1923 Cecil Kimber
constructed the first MG. He started with a Morris Oxford chassis
and mounted a reworked Hotchkiss engine in it. Around this
skeleton he wrapped just enough sheet metal to enclose the working
parts, squeezed two bucket seats inside, and finished off the rear
with a flashy tapered boat tail. The fenders were a gesture,
square cut and mounted away from the body on outriggers. Strangely
enough this Model 1, with its rounded Cowley, bull nose and no
windshield, presented a sleek, functional appearance. It still
does. The first MG is still in fine running order and is shipped
periodically around the world for the adoration of MG fans
everywhere.
Although the first model had
no more than a 4-cylinder 750-cubiccentimeter engine, it managed
to do about 82 miles per hour, and in 1925 Kimber won a Gold Medal
at the Lands End competition. This early shakedown trial proved
the worth of the. little car, and the year 1928 saw the first of
the Midgets, the Mark IV which was rapidly developed into the Type
M. It was phenomenally successful. Cecil Kimber's intuition was
well founded: the desire of the public for a small high
performance car did exist, and the car he designed went far beyond
his expectations. William Morris, who now sported the title of
Lord Nuffield, put the financial power of his organization behind
the project and a new factory at Abingdon became the home of MG.
The new company, officially
named the MG Car Company, approached the business of building a
production sports car with a direct ness of purpose that was
almost frightening. The plan was simple. A design feature or a
piece of equipment that could stand the stress of high speed and
brutal punishment during hours of competitive racing was good
enough to be incorporated into the sports model for the general
public. This led to a pattern of operation. A prototype car was
built first, then a record-breaking machine, which was run at
official speed trials, followed by a racing version, and finally
the so-called sedate road model. However, the road model always
carried the genes of its fierce racing ancestry. Sedate was hardly
the word!
The first really important
racing success was at Brooklands in the Double Twelve Hour Race in
May, 1930, where the Midgets captured team prize and defeated
their rivals, the Austin team. Fired up by the victory the
Abingdon men decided to take the International Class H record,
then held by Austin with 84 mph. They chose the EX120, a prototype
model, and redesigned it completely. When the car was in running
shape a private test was arranged. With the Brooklands track
closed for the winter, the MG crew, led by Captain George Eyston,
gathered on a strip of public highway outside Newmarket. In the
foggy dawn they quietly unloaded EX120 from the truck and prepared
the car for the run. Like saboteurs on a secret mission they
watched for the police, who would have jailed the lot of them.
When their muffled,
surreptitious preparations were done, Eyston made a spectacular
entrance. Disdainful of the police, he arrived, gleaming in the
early sunlight with white coveralls, white helmet, white gloves -
a beacon that could be seen for miles. After a set of railroad
crossing gates were illegally lifted, the test run was made.
Eighty-seven mph! In December of 1930, the little car made it
official at Montlhery, France, then raised it at Brooklands in
March to 97 mph.
But Eyston was dissatisfied.
He wanted to crack the magic 100 mph figure for the flying mile.
With an engine of only 743 cc. such a record would stand for
years. The attempt was made at Montlhery in the summer of 1931. It
was successful. Eyston drove to a record of 101 mph. and then
figured in an incident that would have mystified Sherlock Holmes.
After finishing the record
run he swung around the track for an extra lap. As he drove out of
sight of the pits, the crew heard the engine cut out. They piled
into their truck and raced around the bend. There was EX120 in
flames! Only seconds remained in which to save the driver. The
crew knew that the big-framed Eyston could not remove himself from
the tightly fitting cockpit! With frantic haste they crowbarred
the side panels off. The seat was empty! A desperate search of the
track revealed nothing - no driver!
Eyston himself later supplied
the answers. On that last lap he discovered smoke and flames
rising at his feet. Slowing the car to 60 he managed, with that
last ditch strength of desperation, to jump from the car. A moment
later a Frenchman, testing his Citroen, found the unconscious
Eystron, put him in his car and drove across the fields to the
Montlhery hospital. There the anxious MG crew found him, quietly
recuperating from his bruises, not at all concerned about his
phantom disappearance. This ended the saga of EX 120.
Before the dust raised by
EX120 could settle, EX127 appeared - the Magic Midget. Sporting an
aerodynamically streamlined body, it also featured a venturi type
windshield, which sucked the oncoming air up between two parallel
sheets of glass. The driver actually viewed the track through an
open slot, but a test with a mechanic sitting on the bonnet,
throwing confetti at the windshield, proved that nothing would get
through. EX 127 raised the record to 120 mph. Then Bobby
Kohlrausch of Germany bought it, installed the new Q-Type engine,
ran the machine to a new record of 130 mph and followed that with
a screaming 140 mph on the Frankfurt Autobahn. At that point,
perhaps under Hitler's orders, the car was acquired by
Mercedes-Benz.
During these days of feverish
record breaking, the factory was producing straight racing and
sports cars. The K-3 Magnette was one of the finest, winning race
after race, some under the capable guidance of the famed Tazio
Nuvolari. But in 1935 the staid MG management participated in an
exploit that would have delighted a Broadway press agent. They
entered a team of three PA production sports cars in the Le Mans
24 Hour Endurance Race, and for publicity value decided to recruit
an all-female team of drivers! So it fell to. doughty George
Eyston, who lived in a man's world of engines and high speed, to
select and captain the entourage. He picked six girls, all
experienced drivers, and immediately fell prey to the journalists.
The newspapers called them "Eyston's Dancing Daughters." The
phrase persists today as a memory of the 1935 Le Mans, but what
should also be remembered is that the girls won their class and
brought all three cars in at the end without a scratch!
Suddenly in 1935 Lord
Nuffield announced that the MG Car Company would terminate the
racing program! He pointed out that high speed had served its
purpose. Enough advanced ideas had been developed that could be
incorporated in the production cars for years to come. Besides,
there was no competition. MG had sewn up the 750 cc. class. But
before the axe fell EX 135 had been built. It was run by private
owners for several years and finally passed into the hands of
Major Goldie Gardner who, shortly before World War II, managed to
set a speed record of 206 mph.
During MG's non-racing period
a series of models marched along, the J, the Q, the R, and the
famous T series. A new designer, Sydney Enever, experimented with
the beautiful streamlined scale models that culminated in the MGA.
Engine size progressed steadily until 1600 cc. was reached, a size
that provided enough acceleration for the production models to
cope with the newer postwar cars. EX179, built for a private
owner, George Phillips, set a new series of records on the
Bonneville Salt Flats with George Eyston and Ken Miles as drivers.
This success gave the factory the impetus to design and produce
the sleek, aerodynamic MGA. Under the label EX 182 three cars
triumphed at Le Mans in 1955, and MG finally abandoned the old
square design.
Today the MGA in coupe and
roadster bodies can be seen all over America, while the Twin-Cam
MGA, the production car with a double overhead camshaft engine,
provides the sporting bloods with enough power for serious
competition. But the EX's still march on. MG still experiments. In
1958, David Ash and Stirling Moss drove the EX181 to speeds of 243
and 245 mph, and in 1959 Phil Hill flashed it across the salt
flats at 254 mph.
What is the appeal of the MG?
The best way to describe it is to call it a personal car. It will
do whatever the driver asks, within limits. But these limits are
widespread. The engine is rugged, long lasting, and easy to
maintain. The car handles with the quickness of a cat, and readily
forgives most driving errors.
The T series models all had
the classic style of vintage machines, while the new series has
the functional smoothness of a jet plane. No matter which model
they possess, MG owners love their cars with a rabid fanaticism,
and MG Car Clubs were among the first specialized sports car clubs
in America. Most of our great racing drivers started their careers
in MG's. Perhaps the little car even taught them to drive! The MG
heralded the era of European automobiles in America. And even now
it is still the most sought after small sports car in our country.
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