MGB - The superlative MG

Including MGC and MGB V8

David Knowles

• Publisher: The Crowood Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781785009426
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Automotive Transportation & Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

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.

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.

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