MGB - The superlative MG E-Book

David Knowles

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 903

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The MGB was a great British success story, a product largely conceived, designed and produced by a small team of dedicated people who genuinely cared about their work. Of course, the MGB came from a proud, successful sports car tradition, and the model it replaced - the revolutionary aerodynamic MGA - had been an unprecedented success - so the new car had big shoes to fill. Launching in 1962 and in production for eighteen years, the MGB became one of the most successful sports cars the world has ever known. This book describes how the MGB arose principally from the ideas of one man, MG's Chief Engineer, Syd Enever, how it was designed and developed, how it survived and thrived, and how it became the classic car still highly regarded today. There have been many previous books about the MGB, and the related MGC and V8 variants, but MGB - The superlative MG reaches a new level of detail together seasoned with fresh insight. David Knowles has been researching and writing about the MGB for more than thirty years. Prepare to be surprised at some of the stories you will have never read before, and new twists on some you possibly thought you knew well.

Leseprobe

TITLES IN THE CROWOOD AUTOCLASSICS SERIES

ALFA ROMEO 105 SERIES SPIDER

ALFA ROMEO 916 GTV AND SPIDER

ALFA ROMEO 2000 AND 2600

ASTON MARTIN DB4, DB5 & DB6

ASTON MARTIN DB7

ASTON MARTIN V8

AUSTIN HEALEY 100 & 3000 SERIES

BMW M3

BMW M5

BMW CLASSIC COUPÉS 1965-1989

BMW Z3 AND Z4

CITROEN DS SERIES

CLASSIC JAGUAR XK: THE 6-CYLINDER CARS 1948–1970

CLASSIC MINI SPECIALS AND MOKE

FERRARI 308, 328 & 348

FROGEYE SPRITE

GINETTA ROAD AND TRACK CARS

JAGUAR E-TYPE

JAGUAR F-TYPE

JAGUAR MKS 1 AND 2, S-TYPE AND 420

JAGUAR XJ-S

JAGUAR XK8

JENSEN V8

LAND ROVER DEFENDER

LAND ROVER DISCOVERY: 25 YEARS OF THE FAMILY 4×4

LAND ROVER FREELANDER

LOTUS ELAN

MGA

MGB

MGF AND TF

MG T-SERIES

MAZDA MX-5

MERCEDES-BENZ ‘FINTAIL’ MODELS

MERCEDES-BENZ S-CLASS

MERCEDES-BENZ W113

MERCEDES-BENZ W114 AND W115

MERCEDES-BENZ W123

MERCEDES-BENZ W124

MERCEDES-BENZ W126

MERCEDES-BENZ W201

MERCEDES SL SERIES

MERCEDES SL & SLC 107 1971–2013

MERCEDES SPORTS-LIGHT COUPES

MORGAN 4/4:THE FIRST 75 YEARS

PEUGEOT 205

PORSCHE 924/928/944/968

PORSCHE AIR-COOLED TURBOS 1974–1996

PORSCHE BOXSTER AND CAYMAN

PORSCHE CARRERA:THE AIR-COOLED ERA

PORSCHE CARRERA:THE WATER-COOLED ERA

PORSCHE WATER-COOLED TURBOS 1979–2019

RANGE ROVER SPORT

RANGE ROVER:THE FIRST GENERATION

RANGE ROVER:THE SECOND GENERATION

RELIANT THREE-WHEELERS

RILEY:THE LEGENDARY RMS

ROVER 75 AND MG ZT

ROVER P4

ROVER P6

ROVER SD1

SAAB 99 & 900

SHELBY AND AC COBRA

SUBARU IMPREZA WRX AND WRX STI

SUNBEAM ALPINE & TIGER

TOYOTA MR2

TRIUMPH SPITFIRE & GT6

TRIUMPH TR6

TRIUMPH TR7

VOLVO 1800

VOLVO AMAZON

First published in 2021 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2021

© David Knowles 2021

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 942 6

Cover design by Blue Sunflower Creative

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

MGB Timeline 1958–1992

CHAPTER 1THE MG LEGACY

CHAPTER 2SECOND REVOLUTION – REPLACING THE MGA

CHAPTER 3SUPERLATIVE MGB – THE MONOCOQUE ROADSTER

CHAPTER 4PUTTING A LID ON IT – THE MGB HARDTOP AND MGB GT

CHAPTER 5MUCH MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE – THE STORY OF THE MGC

CHAPTER 6LIGHTWEIGHT SPECIALS – MGB AND MGC GTS

CHAPTER 7BRITISH LEYLAND – ROY HAYNES AND THE ROSTYLES

CHAPTER 8ROVER V8 POWER – THE COSTELLO AND MGB GT V8

CHAPTER 9BLACK BUMPERS – THE IMPACT OF NEW LEGISLATION

CHAPTER 10FINAL MANOEUVRES – SEGUE TO THE END

CHAPTER 11‘YOUR MOTHER WOULDN’T LIKE IT’ – ADVERTISING AND MARKETING

CHAPTER 12MGB AND MGC IN MOTOR SPORTS

CHAPTER 13ASSEMBLY AND SALES OVERSEAS

Postscript – MG RV8 – The Retro Sportscar

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As with all his books, the author owes a debt of gratitude to a vast array of people whose help has been vital; some are listed here:

Martin Adeney; Tony Adriansens; Geoff Allen; Michael Allison; Joe Anastasi; John Ashford; Cameron Aston; Denis Badham, Robin Barker; Mike Barratt; David Barton; Peter Beadle; Keith Belcher; Sallie Belperche; Roche Bentley; Tom Benyon; Anthony Binnington; Logan Blackburn; Rutger Booy; Paul Brand; Ken Breslauer; Patrick Bridger; David Brisker; Steve Brier; Robert Burden; Norman Burr; David Burrows; Henry Camisasca; Archie Campbell; Barrie Cartmell; John Chatham; David Cleverdon; David Cleverly; Peter Cobb; John K. Colgate; Jean-Marie Colleye; David Collins; Chris Cowin; Brian Culcheth; Gary Cunnington; Alan Curtis; Michael Dale; Michael Darcey; Maurice Darling; Pedr Davis; Hans De Bekker; Kim De Bourbon; Javier de Los Rios; John Dickinson; Stefan Dierkes; Bob Doyle; Tony Dron; John Dupont; Michael Eaton; Alan Edis; Ian Elliott; Roger Enever; Nick England; Norman Ewing; Tanya Field; Michael Fisher; Ed Foster; Roger Allan Foy; Karen Froud; Carla Frua; Mike Garton; Robert ‘Bobby’ Gerry; Jim Gilchrist; Tony Giordano; Simon Goldsworthy; Adrian Goodenough; David Goodsir; Carl Gotham; Ted Gowland; Den Green; Malcolm Green; Michael Green; Cat Griffin; Paul Guinness; Steve Harris; Roy Haynes; Don Hayter; Wade Herrmann; Tim Hodgkinson; Don Hogue; Paddy Hopkirk; Dave G. Houser; Marcus Howard-Vyse; Colin Howes; Lisa Hudman; Paul Hunt; Shad Huntley; Bruce Ibbotson; Geoffrey Iley; Barrie & Maggie Jackson; Shao Jingfeng; Brian Jocelyne; Rowland Keith Jnr; Jürg Keller; Tim Kelly; Garry Kemm; Alistair Kennedy; Stephen Laing; Barry Lake; Ruben De Lauw; John Lambie; Richard Lemmer; Leslie V. Leslie; Roy Lewis; Richard Liddick; Buddy Lindblom; John Lindsay; Martyn Lucas; Karl Ludvigsen; James MacLachlan; John McLellan; J. Bruce McWilliams; Richard McWilliams; Harris Mann; Dr Keith Martin; Ben Matthews; Terry Mitchell; Theresa Mitchell; Maurice Mizzi; Richard Monk; David Morys; Mike Moseley; Sue Mott; Jörn Müller-Neuhaus; Peter Neal; Bob Neville; Jeff Newey; Dave Nicholas; Elsa Nicolet; Marcel Nobis; Jim O’Neill; Terry and Sandi O’Neill; Brian Osborne; David Osman, Roger Parker; Rick Parry; Colin Pearcy; Jay Pellegrini Jnr; Tom Penny; Brad Picard; Alec Poole; Alan Prentiss; Jon Pressnell; Bill Price; HRH Prince Charles; Christophe Profit; Qian Qiang; Pablo Raybould; Dave Reese; Clive Richardson; Roberto Rigoli; Graham Robson; Robert Rushing; Kristen Saulnier; Dave Saunders; Bob Schmetterer; Tom Schrader; Alex Sedano; David Selway-Hoskins; Ian Sexton; Peter Seymour; Roger Sharpe; Mike Sheehan; June Simpson; Ken Smith (and his son Trevor); Martin Smith; Peter Sprague; John Sprinzel; Peter Sterken; Lucie Tait-Harris; Alan Tear; Jenny Thompson; John Thornley; Peter Thornley; Nigel Tiffany; Kim Tonry; Derek Tribbick; Craig Truitt; Roger Tucker; John Turner; Stuart Turner; John H. Twist, Pim Van der Veer; Andrew Vigor; Terry Visger; Basil Wales; Christabel Watson (née Carlisle); John Watson; Hilary Watts; Richard White; Clive Wilday; Denis Williams; Jonathan Williams; Martin Williamson; Jeremy Wladis; Brian Woodhams; Nick Wrench; Dickie (and Mrs Susan) Wright; Tim Wright; Vic Young; Alan Zafer; Ralph Zbarsky.

Picture Credits

The author and publisher are grateful to the following for providing images used in this book.

Doug Adams; Rachel Adams; Tony Adriansens; Cameron Aston; Aston Martin Lagonda (AML); Auto Bild Klassik/Sven Krieger; Autocar; Peter Beadle; Beaulieu/Crowood; Keith Belcher collection; Sallie Belperche; Anthony Binnington; Tim Binnington; Logan Blackburn; Bonhams; Paul Brand; Steve Briers; British Motor Heritage Ltd; British Motor Industry Heritage Trust; Roy Brocklehurst; Peter Brodt; David Browne; Bob Burden; Norman Burr; David Burrows; Henry Camisasca; John Chatham; Julie Clare; Jeff Clarke; David Cleverdon; David Cleverley; Peter Cobb; Jean-Marie Colleye; Mike Cook; Cox family; Crowood; Brian Culcheth; Daily Mail; Maurice Darling; John Davies; Javier de Los Rios and Alex Sedano; John Dupont; Michael Eaton; Ian Elliott; Michael Ellman-Brown collection; Enever family; Roger Enever; Michael Fisher; Chris Frost; Simon Goldsworthy; Adrian Goodenough; Ted Gowland; John Gregory; Group 44; Paul Guinness; Burton Hall; Vic Hammond; Steve Harris; Roy Haynes; Don Hayter; Andrew Hedges; Wade Herrmann; Tim Hodgkinson; Colin Howes; Paul Hughes; Shad Huntley; ICI; Art Jordan; Keller family; Dick Knudson; Barry Lake; John Lindsay; John Lloyd; Roger Mac; Graham McCann; James MacLachlan; McWilliams family; Harris Mann; Dr Keith Martin; Janine Mayhew; Marce Mayhew; MGC Register; MG Owners’ Club; Marion Mills; Mark Moore; Jörn Müller-Neuhaus; Peter Neal; Jeff Newey; David Nicholas; John Nikas; Nissan; O’Neill family; Brian Osborne; Rob Owen; Oxford Mail; Rick Parry; Brad Picard; Pininfarina SpA; Bill Price; Pablo Raybould; RBW/Lyndon McNeil; Dave Reese; Renault; Clive Richardson; Road & Track; Bev Robinson; Graham Robson; Norman Rose; Rover Car Co.; SAIC Design; Dave Saunders collection; Tom Schrader; Angie Smith; Ken Smith Collection; Sotheby’s; John Spencer; John Sprinzel; Peter Sterken; Dick Stevens family; Roger Stowers; Sussex Sports Cars; Wyn Thomas; Thompson family; Nigel Tiffany; Bob Ward; Watsonian-Squire; Whitehead family; Jonathan Williams; Peter Wilson; Brian Woodhams; Nick Wrench; J. Yeates; Ralph Zbarsky.

INTRODUCTION

The story of the MGB embraces four decades; its fate eventually became entangled in politics, and was even discussed inside Whitehall. This book is intended as a companion volume to the author’s previous book MGA – The Revolutionary MG (Crowood, 2019), which covered the context of the post-war MG sports car explosion; anyone who wishes to know how the MGA came about and set the scene for its successor may wish to read the two volumes in tandem. Intended to be the ultimate MGB history, even the most knowledgeable MGB fan will find much new here.

The author has stuck by the term ‘roadster’ for the open MGB, although more formally the preferred corporate term was ‘tourer’. MG employee Geoff Allen once said in a letter to MGB historian Ken Smith, ‘Tourers? Roadsters? Convertibles? We used to refer to open MGs as roadsters in the Rectification Department’, but admitted at the same time that he and his colleagues were often described as a ‘law unto themselves’. As perhaps are sports car drivers and book writers.

The MGB is synonymous with the affordable British sports car, as well known in its field as the Issigonis Mini. For some, the sheer ubiquity of the MGB counts against it; but the truth is inescapable that it was successful with good reason. However, whilst the MGB became the latest in a noble sports car line, from the world’s best-known sports car factory, it also lived so long that it became almost a caricature of itself.

International motor sports became an important part of the MGB (and MGC) story too, notably in North America, where most were sold. Over its lifetime, tastes and expectations evolved, but clever marketing sustained sales even in the face of a younger sports car, supposedly intended to replace it. In the end, the MGB faltered, a victim of corporate neglect, but it took a lot to finally kill it.

SPEECH BY SYD ENEVER FOR THE PRESS LAUNCH OF THE MGB IN JUNE 1962

Our aim is to give Sports car motoring to as many people as possible, and to give it them at the right price. We do not want to make a small quantity of high priced, specialized cars for the few. At the same time we set out to provide the fastest possible car, combined with the greatest possible degree of safety. The MGB was evolved with these intentions, and in this car, although the ride is much softer, we have good controllability and with no vices under extreme conditions. Similar to the MGA, the MGB is extremely robust; this is a most important feature to the occupants at critical times. As needed in a fast car the braking is powerful and smooth. With regards to performance we have fitted an 1800 c.c. engine (which gives a torque of 107 ft. lbs.), and we have made use of this to increase the acceleration and general performance, and not to increase the top speed, which is quite sufficient. As regards bodywork, we hope you will approve its clean lines. Although this car is three inches shorter than the MGA, we have arranged for much more room in the cockpit. The cockpit is amply upholstered in real leather, with comfortable diaphragm seating. The backs of the seats are adjustable for rake to enable the owner to choose his best position for control and comfort. In this car we now have a considerable amount of luggage apace, behind the seats and in the boot. You have easy wind-up windows, also with side ventilators, there is also separate fresh air ventilation at the centre of the cockpit. As you know, the MGA was a highly successful car, and the MGB should be more so.(Courtesy of the Enever family)

The proud father of the MGB, Syd Enever, in the compound at Abingdon.

MGB TIMELINE 1958–1992

The MG factory was opened in 1929; by the time that the MGB arrived, it was effectively an assembly plant bringing in completed bodies, engines and gearbox assemblies and many other pre-manufactured components, but it never lost its magic as the centre of the MG world.

CHAPTER ONE

THE MG LEGACY

In the 1920s Morris Garages was primarily a car retail and servicing business in the heart of Oxford, separate from founder William Morris’s eponymous car-making business at Cowley. Under the management of Cecil Kimber, a new sales manager who arrived in 1921, Morris Garages dabbled in ‘customizing’ Cowley-built cars, before gradually progressing to building brand new cars from a combination of standard Morris and bought-in or bespoke components.

The world-famous octagonal ‘MG’ logo first appeared in Morris Garages advertising in 1923, and next year the badge was registered as a trademark. There has long been debate on what constitutes the first ‘proper’ MG, but before long MG emerged as a marque in its own right, ‘MG Midget’ becoming virtually synonymous with the British light sports car genre. From that point, whilst various MG saloons and coupés played their part, it was the sports cars for which the company really became known and is best remembered. This book does not delve into early MG history; for those who are interested, the author addressed the post-war story in his companion volume MGA – the Revolutionary MG.

Heritage has always been important to MG, hence the juxtaposition of ‘Old Number One’ and an MGB Roadster in this early advertisement for the latter.

Any dispassionate analysis will confirm that the first postwar MG sports cars were basically reheated pre-war vehicles, but exports to North America soon came to dominate focus. The first new post-war MGs still retained the upright pre-war style with separate wings (‘fenders’) and running boards, chrome-cased headlamps mounted outboard of upright rectangular MG grilles, and narrow-gutted coachwork, still built in time-honoured fashion, with ash body frames dressed with metal panelling. However, as the 1940s slid into the 1950s, commercial expediency and technology all started to detract from those outmoded design tropes; even if much of the focus for British carmakers was simply cranking up their output and sending it for export, the pressure for change could not be ignored.

Tastes and performance expectations were changing in a bright new decade where sleeker new styles were emerging; with better roads and traffic speeds on the rise, the MG sports car also needed to undergo a revolution. The story of that radical transition is told in MGA – the Revolutionary MG. The MG Series MGA, to give it its proper name, arrived on the market in September 1955 and went on to sell in numbers that were just as revolutionary as its appearance, with well over 110,000 being sold before it was finally replaced by the subject of this book.

The aerodynamic MGA was truly a revolutionary step from the classic MG sports car ‘square-rigger’ style.

The replacement marked another revolution in sports car terms, although the styling was less of a shock in comparison to what had happened in 1955. At launch, the new MG sports car was marketed by its proud creators as the ‘Superlative MGB’, which for many years would hold the title of the world’s best-selling sports car.

THE DREAM TEAM: JOHN THORNLEY AND SYD ENEVER

In MG’s history a handful of individuals have warranted the title ‘Mister MG’. Arguably Cecil Kimber was the first man worthy of the nickname, although surely nobody would have dared say it to his face (he was, meanwhile, careful to defer ultimate credit to his ‘patron’). After Kimber left Abingdon, however, his legacy might have been lost because of the priorities of war work, which had helped engineer his cruel expulsion from MG, and with his tragic death in 1945. After the war MG entered a turbulent period. Although he was not destined to assume control at Abingdon until the end of 1952, John William Yates Thornley (11 June 1909 – 16 July 1994) certainly became a safe pair of hands that the MG factory needed to navigate it through the incredible journey that saw Abingdon transformed into the manufacturer of first the MGA and subsequently the MGB. Thornley’s son Peter wrote a biography of his father, entitled Mr MG (Magna Press), and the name is apposite. Thornley started at Abingdon in November 1931 as Service Receptionist; his front-facing customer role, at which he excelled, was a great primer in the business. Thornley forged friendships and earned wide respect, from the shop floor to the topmost corridors of power, and he was instrumental in ensuring the continued existence of MG sports cars and their home at Abingdon. He oversaw the expansion and changes that facilitated the new post-war MG generation.

One of his trusted colleagues was Albert Sydney (‘Syd’) Enever (25 March 1906–9 February 1993), whose arrival at what had originally been Morris Garages considerably preceded that of Thornley; in fact Enever started work in Morris Garages before Cecil Kimber, and moved to Abingdon in October 1929 where he became head of the ‘MG Car Company’s Experimental Department’. In the 1930s Enever became an essential part of the racing and record-breaking story of MG, supporting various memorable endeavours by Goldie Gardner and George Eyston. It was both an exciting and a remarkable story, and the experience gained, and Enever’s inherent aptitude and application to any given task, meant that he became a vital cog in the Abingdon machine, masterminding the MGA and later the MGB. While John Thornley fielded the politics, Syd Enever was so ingrained in Abingdon’s fabric that he too was called ‘Mister MG’. There were many other good people at Abingdon, but most of them would probably concede that John Thornley and Syd Enever deserved their reputation as heads of the family. Syd Enever eventually rose to become MG’s Chief Engineer and Designer. Thornley retired on 27 June 1969, Enever two years later in May 1971.

ABINGDON – CENTRE OF THE MG UNIVERSE

The former leather works at Abingdon-on-Thames was not the first dedicated MG factory; at Cecil Kimber’s instigation, William Morris (who became a baronet in 1929, and then a baron, as Lord Nuffield, in 1934) financed a brand new factory to build MGs at Edmund Road in Oxford, which opened in 1927. However as production rapidly expanded, this facility soon proved inadequate and thus the familiar premises at Abingdon were established, opening in 1929. One of the first people to go there as it opened was twenty-three-year-old Syd Enever.

Much of the workforce was drawn from Abingdon and the nearby villages of Marcham, Drayton, Sutton Courtenay, Culham, Clifton Hampden and the Oxford suburbs; many families had more than one member who worked at ‘The Gees’ on the Marcham Road leading out of town. This family atmosphere was fostered by MG’s management and helped give the Abingdon plant some of the best employee relations in the entire BMC group (and similarly in later British Leyland times). Some rivalry and even jealousy between Abingdon and Cowley was there on the surface, but it was nowhere as intense as that between Cowley and Longbridge. That slight insularity could be both a blessing and a curse.

By the time that the MGB arrived, the Abingdon factory had expanded to its practical limits (even though there were thoughts of beneficial rebuilding in the 1960s), but in the process a great deal had changed within its walls. Over the years, much of the subsidiary work such as chassis-making was whittled out of the factory, so that by the time of the MGB, Midget and Sprite as much importance was attached to the inwards deliveries at one end as to despatches heading out of another. The magic and mystery has always been associated with Abingdon – with good reason – but credit should also be given the other factories at Swindon, Coventry, Cowley and, yes, Birmingham, which made MGB production a reality. These are touched on later.

MG’s New Design Heroes

Reporting to Syd Enever were various small teams of design specialists, many of whom, unlike Enever and his peers, only arrived at Abingdon in the 1950s. In the midst of this was a young apprentice by the name of Roy Brocklehurst (18 June 1932 – 29 April 1988), who became an apprentice at Abingdon in 1947, straight out of school. He became a close confidant of Syd Enever, who seems to have appreciated and nurtured his young protégé’s enthusiasm in a way that undoubtedly helped his climb to Assistant Chief Engineer in 1964 and to take over as Chief Engineer when Enever retired in 1971; soon after, however, he was promoted within Austin Morris with a new role at Longbridge, working for Charles Griffin (Charles Arthur Griffin, 13 August 1918 – 31 October 1999).

The shift of MG design responsibility from Cowley to Abingdon in 1954 had created an opportunity for Enever to pick his new team, and he turned to some of the Cowley personnel he knew, many of whom he had worked with, trusting and respecting them. For body design work Enever recruited James Edward (‘Jim’) O’Neill (13 March 1922 – 12 December 2015), whose work on the MG TD and Z Magnette made him an obvious choice. O’Neill’s experience also included spells at Pressed Steel and Austin. He swiftly became a crucial member of the MGA design team, working with Syd Enever’s crucial ally Eric Carter (4 February 1907 – 8 April 1980) at Morris Bodies in Coventry. O’Neill’s role in delivering the MGA was swiftly followed by design work on the EX186 (an abortive Le Mans project) and various ideas to replace the MGA that preceded the final MGB. O’Neill was Chief Body Designer by 1970. Then there was Denis George Williams (born 7 August 1925) who had started at Pressed Steel, from where he moved to Morris Motors and the MG & Riley design office at Cowley; after a spell at Carbodies he came back to Cowley, at Morris Motors Radiators Branch, before joining the team at Abingdon. Williams worked on some aspects of the MGA, the EX186 prototype and would later be largely responsible for the ADO47 MG Midget of 1961.

The key leading members of the MG Development Team who were responsible for the creation of the MGB. From left to right they are: Syd Enever, Roy Brocklehurst, Jim O’Neill, Terry Mitchell, Don Hayter and Alec Hounslow.

The addition of responsibility for the Austin-Healey 100/6 meant that O’Neill and his team were under increased pressure and therefore had a need for more resources. This brought in Don Hayter (24 January 1926 – 9 October 2020), who had started out at Pressed Steel but more recently worked for Aston-Martin at their premises in Feltham. Upon his arrival at Abingdon in February 1956, Hayter was immediately pitched into work on the MGA Twin Cam. He really came to the fore, however, when asked by Jim O’Neill to work on what would become the definitive MGB; we will return to his role on that in more detail later.

On the chassis side, Jim O’Neill’s Cowley colleague Terence Henry (‘Terry’) Mitchell (9 September 1921 – 22 October 2003) also joined the new Abingdon team; Mitchell had worked on the EX179 record breaker and he was a talented suspension man, even if his favourite rear system of De Dion axles never translated into a production MG. He was involved in the MGA, MGB and MGC and was largely responsible for managing development of the MGB GT V8 shortly after Syd Enever’s retirement.

Richard Neville (‘Dickie’) Wright (11 April 1921 – 4 January 2012) was recruited from Tandon Motorcycles by Harry White (who played no part in the MGB story) and joined the team in March 1956, not long after Hayter. Wright soon found himself working principally with Terry Mitchell; by the latter stages of his career at Abingdon he had contributed royally to the MGB and derivatives including federal compliance and key structural safety aspects such as seat belt installations.

In 1960 came Desmond Griffith (‘Des’) Jones (22 January 1919 – 15 June 2006), another former Morris Motors body draughtsman (he had started at Cowley in August 1936 as a clerk on the production line). After remarkable Second World War service (North Africa, Sicily and D-Day landings), quietly spoken Jones returned to Cowley and worked on the Morris Minor and Tourer, Oxford and related Traveller, the MG Z Magnette and Wolseley 4/44 and the ADO16 BMC 1100; under O’Neill and Hayter he contributed to the MGB family in many ways, including the interior fixtures (and, in due course, the impact-absorbing facias and the MGC bonnet). Jones came to Abingdon in August 1960, at a time when many Cowley jobs were headed for Longbridge. Like several of his colleagues, Jones went on to contribute to the Triumph Acclaim project at Cowley.

Donald William (‘Don’) Butler (June 1930 – 14 January 2012) came to Abingdon a year before Des Jones, but had worked on the MGA bodyshell in 1954 when Jim O’Neill had co-opted his assistance to work alongside Eric Carter in Coventry. Butler also worked on the MGB family, designing the definitive crackle-black facia, and worked on the Midget; he later followed Roy Brocklehurst to Longbridge to work on LC10 – eventually the Maestro hatchback.

MOTORING COLOSSUS: THE BRITISH MOTOR CORPORATION

William Richard Morris (ultimately Lord Nuffield) was a man who became a curious blend of corporate dictator, paternalist and magnificent philanthropist. Throughout the history of his business interests, which eventually coalesced into a giant of the British motor industry called the Nuffield Organization, its father figure and creator sought to exercise the ultimate rights of decision-making that his position allowed, but having turned seventy just two years after the war, his ability and his appetite for running such a large business began to wane. He died just a few months after the MGB’s launch.

All the while that the Nuffield Organization was seeking to meet the demand for exports, and to reinvent its entire car range for the post-war world, it faced competition from a number of quarters. The British car industry was dominated by a group of companies known colloquially as the ‘Big Five’ (BMC, Ford, Rootes, Standard-Triumph and Vauxhall), but for historical reasons the biggest rivalry as far as Nuffield was concerned lay with Austin, headquartered in Longbridge, south of Birmingham.

Austin of Longbridge was led by Leonard Lord, who before the war had been number two to Lord Nuffield, running the latter’s business but resigning in August 1936. There are various stories of why this took place, but not long after Leonard Lord joined the Austin Motor Company in 1938 he became the heir apparent to Lord Austin (the ‘old man’ died in 1941) and by the time that peace-time production resumed in 1945, the Austin business was a serious and arguably Morris’s most ruthless rival.

The 1953 MG TF Midget, the last of the ‘traditional’ Midgets, was also the first of the BMC era; it was short lived as the MGA took its place two years later.

The two rivals danced warily around each other in the late 1940s and there was a short-lived collaboration of sorts, but this was broken off due to mutual lack of enthusiasm. However, with political as well as business interests seeking to encourage closer cooperation and rationalization across the industry, consolidation became almost inevitable. Matters came to a head late on 23 November 1951, when a merger of interests was announced, proclaimed as the genesis of an industrial British colossus to rival the American ‘Big Three’ of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

Initially Lord Nuffield was announced as the head of the combine, with Leonard Lord, Reginald Hanks (Nuffield’s deputy) and George Harriman (Austin), but it was an unhappy ship with two captains at the helm. Before long, Lord Nuffield ceded control to his former protégé: from then on, whilst ‘Morris, MG, Wolseley, Riley and Morris Commercial’ interests were nominally still run from Cowley by the Morris Motors Board, the real power lay in Birmingham; periodically Leonard Lord, Chairman of the British Motor Corporation, felt it necessary to remind others who was the ultimate boss of an organization that nevertheless maintained separate product and marketing channels.

A consequence of the loose management arrangements, and the shift of the ultimate power base away from Cowley, facilitated tribal factions, with rivalries between the ‘Morris’ and ‘Austin’ factories. Leonard Lord and George Harriman seem to have enjoyed and encouraged many of these internecine squabbles and tensions, often setting one group against the other, backing rival projects for a single outcome – the engine that went into the short-lived MGA Twin Cam being a typical example.

As far as MG at Abingdon was concerned, this presented challenges as well as opportunities. The MGA, for example, was a fairly early recipient of the new BMC corporate Austin-designed and Longbridge-made ‘B’ Series engine, a choice largely foisted on MG but a shrewd move in the end as it helped cement MG and Abingdon more firmly within the BMC corporate supply chain. John Thornley told the author how he worked hard to foster a good relationship with Leonard Lord, whose attitude to some of his management (Chief Engineer Gerald Palmer being a good case) would surely be unimaginable in a modern context.

Winning the battle for MG’s sports car future and design expertise, with a new design office in 1954 and the MGA launched the following year, was partly down to Thornley’s skilful negotiations, and he helped secure the Abingdon factory for the lifetime of the new roadster at least. Even so, there was little doubt that the costs involved in creating a new motor car were climbing inexorably upwards; the table below has been included as a snapshot that contrasts the project sums considered by the Morris Motors Board for the MGA (‘DO1062’) and what became the MGB (‘ADO23’).

If we assume an overall tooling cost for the MGA of under £200,000, the equivalent figure for the MGB was already being predicted as well over twice as much as early as the spring of 1958. Clever thinking by John Thornley would eventually help with this problem, but we are getting ahead of ourselves as that story is told in the next chapter.

CHAPTER TWO

SECOND REVOLUTION – REPLACING THE MGA

For many designers, the excitement of a project is in the chase towards production: as soon as this is achieved, their interest shifts toward the next challenge.

Within weeks of the launch of the MGA, John Thornley and Syd Enever were already planning a successor to keep Abingdon afloat. In November 1955 they produced a joint paper entitled ‘Suggested Design and Development Programme for Abingdon Products’, expressing a belief that future Abingdon sports cars should have chassis frames. Despite this, Thornley told the author, ‘by the middle of the following year, we were scratching out the beginnings of the B – which eventually became monocoque!’

EX205 – CONSERVATIVE BEGINNINGS

There were several reasons for this; BMC corporate politics combined with caution at a time when monocoque cars without a roof still seemed a risk. Syd Enever was justifiably pleased with the chassis that he, Terry Mitchell and Roy Brocklehurst had delivered for the MGA. Welding the chassis frame at Abingdon (from John Thompson components) provided security of production; too often Thornley and Enever had seen external threats to Abingdon’s survival. Had Gerald Palmer’s monocoque MG sports car gone ahead, there was a risk that MG production could have switched entirely to Cowley. Furthermore, body-tooling costs were rising in the 1950s, whilst tool-making capacity in the UK was inadequate; having just secured the budget for the MGA’s chassis, Thornley felt there was something to be said for saving the cost of replacing it.

Harry Herring’s model of Jim O’Neill’s design (to Syd Enever’s brief) for a possible replacement for the MGA Coupé.

Photographed when new, this is Harry Herring’s model of EX205 in Roadster form.

Hence the initial concept derived from the MGA: the November 1955 report suggested that ‘there is ample room within the MGA bodyshell for substantial changes in chassis layout. A more advanced shape is already being worked on against the day when this may be needed.’ This pragmatic approach was explained to the author by Jim O’Neill, who had joined MG as Chief Body Draughtsman in 1954: ‘our main problem was the tooling cost – we were always working on a shoestring, and so we thought that if we could just put another body on an MGA chassis frame then there would be less cost involved.’

The first serious in-house effort to re-clothe the MGA chassis was undertaken by O’Neill. It was rounded and bulky, and he himself referred to it as ‘The Pig’. A frequent challenge was trying to turn the creative ideas of his boss (Enever) into a practical proposition, and by his own admission this exercise was not successful, and Enever agreed. O’Neill personally chopped up the model and there are no known photos to record what it actually looked like (there are photos of O’Neill concepts of rounded coupé concepts, including some shown here, but they should not be confused with the poor ‘Pig’).

As 1957 rolled into 1958, there were more factors in play alongside the saga of ‘The Pig’ and the Frua car. The Healeydesigned ADO13 Austin-Healey Sprite came to Abingdon and there were serious teething problems with this brand new model (which need not concern us here), but necessitated interest in open monocoques. It was evident that an MG Midget could be spun off the Sprite, and so it would have seemed strange in this context if the MGA replacement retained a separate chassis frame. As the MG team looked into this more, it was also obvious that the space and effort taken up by MGA chassis manufacture could usefully be sacrificed in favour of overall output, which was especially important from late 1957 as Abingdon became BMC’s corporate sports car centre, building both MGs and Austin-Healeys.

Gerald Palmer, based at Cowley, created this monocoque sports car concept.

Meanwhile, over at Rootes Group, the monocoque underframe of the Hillman Husky was adapted as the basis of the 1959 Loewy-styled Sunbeam Alpine ‘Series I’. Responsibility for many Rootes bodies lay with Pressed Steel (as with the Sprite); it seems obvious that there would have been some interesting ‘what if?’ conversations between Pressed Steel and their friends at MG. Don Hayter told the author how he and his colleagues had been ‘wowed’ by the Alpine when they first saw one at Earls Court; it had sleek, straight-through wing lines rising to those fashionable, increasingly de rigueur peaked tail fins. If Rootes was making a move on MG territory, then BMC needed to ensure their next contender was up to the task.

ELEGANT DEAD END – THE FRUA MGA

Early attempts at a new body for the MGA chassis met limited success; as evident in the main text, sketches and models were worked up to Syd Enever’s brief by Jim O’Neill and Peter Neal, but it is fair to say that nobody loved them. In the midst of this, Enever went to see George Harriman at Longbridge and the outcome was that an MGA chassis was shipped to Frua in Italy, with a request that the stylist work his magic and create a new sports car for the American audience. The result was a stunning, Italianate roadster with plenty of chrome and an off-white leather interior: it had luxurious fixtures, fittings and finish, but nobody believed it was an MG in spirit. The combination of the standard 1.5-litre engine and heavy hand-built body put paid to the Frua MGA (retrospectively given the MG project code of EX205/2R). The Frua MGA was destroyed in order to avoid paying import tax on the car, which had cost £13,000. If nothing else, the exercise helped convince everyone that there was merit in dispensing with the separate chassis.

The Frua-bodied MGA was much admired but arguably looked more like a contemporary Maserati than a small British sports car. Sadly it was later destroyed to avoid paying the import taxes.

The full-size Frua prototype was measured and drawn at Abingdon, and a scale model was made by MG’s talented modelmaker Harry Herring, who also made a coupé hardtop. The model itself survives at Gaydon.

AUSTIN-HEALEY COMES TO ABINGDON

When the Austin-Healey 100 came into being in 1952, there were sharp intakes of breath for differing reasons at Warwick, Longbridge and Abingdon. For a time the beautiful new shape of the stylish Healey was the pinnacle of the BMC sports car family, with assembly at Longbridge using bodies from Jensen of West Bromwich, but eventually an opportunity was taken to rationalize BMC sports car assembly at one factory, arguably one of BMC’s more logical decisions.

EX214 – THE MONOCOQUE SOLUTION

Eventually a monocoque solution became inevitable. That the new Pressed Steel facility at Swindon housed the necessary expertise and was on the lookout for work only helped sway decisions. John Thornley often boasted – with justification – that whilst the assembly-line facilities at Abingdon were never state-of-the-art, their simplicity meant that they could be reconfigured in a matter of days rather than months. Thornley pointed out that the lines at Abingdon comprised ‘little low brick walls with precast concrete channels on the top, that a motor car would roll along: it was a channel one side, and a flat platform the other – so this would take varying tracks, and cars were propelled from one workstation to the next by the good old way of pushing!’

The change to chassis-less construction came in June 1958, and with it project ‘EX205’ was superseded by ‘EX214 – Replacement for MGA’. Having made the decision, the next step was to determine how best to make it work. Syd Enever asked his team to experiment, and Don Hayter and Roy Brocklehurst sketched out ideas. ‘We drew up a chassis and a sill section, and pulled them together, to produce a composite section which we reckoned would be strong enough’, Hayter remembers, conceding that this was theory without much hard evidence. ‘We said to Syd that what he wanted would depend upon the torsional stiffness in the middle of the car. If you take the doors off, the car is effectively only a few inches thick. We could do a deep tunnel in the middle, but the stiffness at the outer edges would depend upon the sills.’

The inevitable Harry Herring model in the foreground, photographed at the British Motor Museum; note the EX205 behind at the left and the Frua model (with conventional top) behind.

The way forward was to carry out torsional tests on the basic MGA chassis and then make up and test their new sill section in the same manner, using a 4-foot-long test piece using the proposed cross-section. This was then taken to the test rig at Cowley: ‘we tested it and found it wasn’t quite as stiff – but it was 95 per cent there. Of course what we weren’t doing was measuring the whole lot, complete with the central tunnel as well – so we reckoned that by having a sill and a tunnel joined by cross-members, which physically overlapped, we were going to get the equivalent stiffness.’ The principle established, the detailing ensued: Brocklehurst did the under-frame including floor, bulkhead and pedal surfaces, whilst Hayter did all the other parts of the core structure: ‘I did everything from there inwards – all the wheel arches, inner wheel arches and so on, and joined them onto Roy’s floor and engine mountings, effectively.’

As the table shows, however, there was another aspect to the study: choice of powertrain. Taking the 1622cc B-Series as the base option, the V4 engine was a new power unit that had been developed by Dr Duncan Stewart and his small team at Longbridge as part of a proposed brand new family of units with a narrow ‘vee’ formation including 2-litre V4 and 3-litre V6 versions.

The V4 engine was a serious exercise to create an all-new corporate engine family for the 1960s, on broadly similar lines to the work at Ford. There was a very narrow angle between the two banks of cylinder pairs, resulting in a compact unit that was short but nevertheless wider than an in-line four. Prototypes were tested at Abingdon as well as Longbridge, but in the end the project was abandoned.

Obvious benefits were packaging and weight; prototype V4 units ran in MGAs although, according to Don Hayter, MG never saw the V6 in the metal. The greater width of the engine and ancillaries necessitated a wider engine bay. Ian Elliott, a former Austin Apprentice, says ‘I think there were two different sizes of V4, the larger one once being essayed in an MGB prototype. Duncan Stewart and his team did a lot of “blue sky” stuff, such as all the early development on belt-drive cams (first used by Vauxhall in the end). They even stuck a truck-sized turbocharger on an MGA at one stage I believe.’

A further option was the use of the MGA Twin Cam engine, which, it should be remembered, was still brand new in summer 1958; for better access to the unit in the engine bay, a wider bonnet aperture was again essential. The fourth option was a new 4-cylinder unit, schemed by Syd Enever from the basis of the C-Series six, already due for an expansion of capacity in 1959 to 2912cc. This meant in theory that a 4-cylinder version could be built using existing tooling, to a capacity of 1941cc.

The final option referenced was a ‘two-litre MG engine’, which, if not the 4-cylinder C-Series, was presumably a bespoke unit. In the end none of these alternatives progressed; whilst the idea of the twin-cam as an option was initially favoured, in-service headaches (covered in detail in MGA – The Revolutionary MG) meant that the compromise was the 1798cc B-Series in-line 4-cylinder. The idea of using a version of the old 2.2-litre 4-cylinder Austin engine, then still used in the Austin Gipsy and Taxi, is covered in Chapter Five.

Meanwhile the overall style, in particular the external ‘skin’, developed towards the familiar MGB shape. ‘I just cleaned off the vestigial fins from my quarter-scale, and altered the tail lamps’, Hayter says, adding that there was pressure on him to use the ADO16 tail lamps, which are quite similar: ‘but they were too sharp, and I wanted more shape to get the lines running through the whole body from the headlamp in the way I wanted them. So I did my own tail lamp, did the headlamp cut-in, and effectively by cutting the front off the shape of Jim’s car, there was the site for the radiator grille.’ It should be noted for the record that Jim O’Neill also laid claim to those tail lamps; the truth is probably that both were responsible, for at the time Hayter reported to Jim O’Neill.

There can be little doubt that this beautiful quarter-scale model by Harry Herring shows the definitive shape of the MGB. Note how the radiator grille badge is modelled as a cast item with enamelled MG badge, rather like that of the outgoing MGA.

The B-Series engine was an easy fit within the wide engine bay of the MGB (here in prototype form, photographed on 23 January 1962 for the record by Pressed Steel).

As what had been EX214 segued into the BMC-sanctioned ADO23, the design moved closer towards the definitive MGB. The table here shows some of the key early work as recorded in the substantial ADO23 section of the EX Register. ADO23/370 was the first prototype, built by Eric Carter and his team at Morris Motors Bodies Branch at Quinton Road, Coventry. MG’s talented modelmaker Harry Herring made a scale model and, with this approved, the lines were scaled up and a full-size model was built.

‘John Thornley and Syd looked at it – with just silver paint on it – and then metal panels were made up from the wooden model, and the insides were made to Roy’s drawings – all by Eric Carter at Coventry’, Hayter told the author, adding ‘I was up and down to Coventry so often, I must have worn a groove in the road.’

After a management viewing by Sir George Harriman, the go-ahead was given and the first running prototype was started. This version would have an independent rear suspension set-up and the spare wheel was stowed vertically in the boot. With development approval agreed, work could proceed on the various constituent elements of the new sports car. Joseph Lucas, Dunlop, Lockheed and Wilmot-Breeden were typical of the trusted suppliers, but there were various other specialists who were engaged with bespoke parts unique to the model.

EX REGISTER: EX214 ‘REPLACEMENT FOR MGA’

NumberDateName of PartEX214/1