MG

the late Jeff Cole and his superb J4 Midget I have always loved MGs but not every MG is lovable. My first classic car of all was a 1936 Pa. I restored it, too much in fact, and then raced it and drove thousands of miles in it. Everything about it was well made and I was always astounded that at the time, the British Vintage Sports car Club would not allow the car to compete as it was not deemed 'thoroughbred'. This was even more silly as MGs had a distinguished racing career and had broken a plethora of class speed records. They even picked up a couple just before WW2 in Germany by removing a piston and rod from a 6 cylinder car! I always suspected that they knew a lot of MGs would thrash the more valuable cars! Fortunately, the MG Car Club ran races for us called the Triple M register. They were great fun but one could never do better than second! Number one was always Jeff Cole in his fantastic supercharged J4. This was capable of 120 mph and revved, I am told, up to 12000 rpm. This was quite extraordinary, as the J4 had a two bearing crankshaft! We often wondered who had built that crank for him. As I bought and restored further cars, I was often struck at how crude some of the 'classy' cars were compared to that Pa. I also owned an L type car with a racing fish tail. This went like the wind but I never quite warmed to it. For the most part, later MGs were in my view awful. They never felt like a whole car...rather a bag of bits! The engines were crude ordinary lumps and the whole MG ethos was lost. The one exception was the MGA twin cam which is included here. This was in every way an ultimate British sports car of its time. Sadly, the MGA was furnished with a typical British tin body that began to rust even in the showroom!