Ross Alkureishi - The Complete Book of Classic MG Cars

ROSS ALKUREISHI

From humble beginnings as an offshoot of Morris Motors Ltd., MG rose to become a marque in its own right. Imbued from the start with an impudent sporting prowess, its cars beguiled generation after generation of motoring enthusiastboth at home and around the world. Its famous octagonal badge in time became a guarantee of the quality, performance, and sheer character of its products.

Just as its inspired Safety Fast! marketing slogan suggested, right from the start MG tried to offer buyers a product that was one step up from the norm: highly attractive, well-engineered, and with a built in promise of swift, but supremely safe, motoring.

Initially a rebodied Morris Cowley, it quickly moved on to reengineering its donor parts, and then bespoke production. The arrival of the revolutionary M-Type Midget made sports car ownership affordable to the general public for the first time, and kickstarted a development space race.

During the 1930s, the MG name became synonymous with racing and speed-record-breaking successes, before new corporate ownership brought it to heel.

After World War II, MG was at the forefront of the export boom with model after model gaining the title of worlds bestselling sports car. Its inexpensive T-Type Midgets, MGA, MGB, and Midgets entranced buyers the world over.

It was by no means plain sailing, as multiple ownership changes saw it endure lean years and sometimes struggle for survival. Always, though, it continued to try to produce cars that adhered to its core values.

After the privations of the British Leyland years, MG endured to be revitalized in the 1990s with its innovative mid-engine MGFonce again, the octagon had a car worthy of the badge.

It all come crashing down in the new millennium, with the arrival and subsequent conduct of the Phoenix Group.

Yet the purpose of this book isnt to focus on tales of corporate mismanagement, but instead to celebrate the vintage, classic, and modern classic output of one of Britains, and indeed the worlds, finest sports car manufacturers.

In the very early part of the twentieth century, motoring was still principally a pursuit for those of significant means. However, by its second decade the times were changing quickly and a new guard of automobile producers, including the Ford Motor Company in North America and Morris Motors Ltd. in Great Britain, was busy targeting the high-volume, low-price market.

It was clear from a young age that William Richard Morris was destined to become an entrepreneur. Possessed both with a formidable character and a clear vision, he first began a bicycle repair business in a building at the bottom of the garden of his parents home in James Street Cowley St John, an inner suburb of Oxford. This quickly expanded to include motorcycles and proper premises (including a showroom at 48 High Street, in the center of the city). By 1905 automobiles had joined the stable in the form of a motorcar hire and repair company and a taxi firm.

The move into automobile manufacturing was a natural one facilitated by the purchase, and conversion, of the derelict former Military Training College in Morriss hometown. There in 1913, under the banner of W.R.M Motors Ltd., he began constructing his first vehicle, the Morris Oxford.

This two-seater was built to Morriss own design but consisted of components almost entirely sourced from external suppliers, including its 1018cc four-cylinder, side-valve, 8.9-horsepower White & Poppe engine and three-speed gearbox. Its most distinctive feature though, sitting up front, was its cowled bullnose radiator; this endowed it with a rambunctious visual character, even if the performance reality was a touch more prosaic. However, keenly priced at 165 and with admirable build quality and equipment levels, the Oxford sold strongly from the start.

With a notable 353 examples finding buyers that first year, it was a very good start that its four-seat evolution, the 11.9-horsepower Cowley soon followed. This initial success proved that his new car did indeed have a market, but little could Morris have envisaged that hed begun a journey that would lead to becoming one of the UKs leading industrialists and a multimillionaire, and with it, the title of Viscount Nuffield.

Little, too, could he have foreseen the pivotal role that its sister company, Morris Garagesformed to sell, service, and market the vehicles (alongside other marques)would play in the future. While the Oxford became the bestselling car of the 1920s, with the now renamed Morris Motors Ltd. at one point holding a seismic 41 percent market share, in 1921 a catalyst for change arrived in the form of a certain Mr. Cecil Kimber.

The assembly line for the Morris Bullnose, Oxfordshire, 1925.

The 1922 appointment of Cecil Kimber put Morris Garages on the road to forming MG as a distinct company. As its style evolved from the early special Chummy bodied cars, through the 11.9-horsepower Raworth Super Sports, to the Bullnose 14/28 MG Super Sports, including Old Number One, it gained a reputation as a builder of quality, reliable, affordable, and thoroughly sporting wares.

The famous octagon makes an appearance on the early cars, but while the radiator badge states M.G. Super Sports, in the center its still branded Morris Oxford.