This issue Graham looks back at his early motoring career
and the engine that powered it.
(^24) MGE AUGUST 2019 http://www.mgenthusiast.com
Graham’s first car was an MG TA, which he used whilst he was a graduate
trainee at Jaguar Cars. He started writing about cars in 1961, joined
AUTOCAR in 1965, became an independent automotive historian in 1972,
and has since sampled every type of MG, ancient and modern. He has also
published more than 160 books, and countless magazine articles.
osh, doesn’t time fly? I
have just realised that
it is almost exactly 60
years ago (mid 1959) that
I bought my first car and, by the
way, that it was an MG. I’d already
been working in the British motor
industry for a couple of years, paying
off university debts and wondering
if I would ever be what one might
call ‘prosperous’. As a young trainee
the joys of cycling from my digs to
Jaguar Cars rather rapidly wore off
so I soon set my Yorkshire-based
father the task of finding me a car.
In a matter of days father called
to tell me that he had already done
the deal for me to buy a 1938 MG
TA (sorry, I haven’t a clue what the
registration number was) which
I used for commuter transport
around Coventry, as well as
between Coventry and Yorkshire,
for a year or so until it was replaced
by an almost-new Austin A35.
I remember three basic things
about my ageing TA. In the rain it
leaked from both the floorboards
and from rather ill-fitting side-
screens. That I once had a low-speed
nose-to-tail traffic-jam accident in it
but, thankfully, only the front wings
and the radiator suffered, and that
on one trip to Yorkshire the 1292cc
engine suddenly destroyed a white-
metal connecting-rod bearing.
And that is really the reason
for this month’s column, for that
was the first and only time I ever
owned a car which did not have
removable shell bearings. Yet,
to my joy, the local handyman/
mechanic in my Yorkshire village
knew all about repairing and re-
creating bearing surfaces without
having to scrap the entire engine!
That encourages me to recall
that the TA was the first and only
G
My MG beginnings
This photograph shows the simple rolling chassis configuration of the MG TA of 1936. The vehicle’s engine, gearbox and
the rear axle assemblies were all ‘lifted’ and then modified from the Morris 10 and Wolseley 10/40 saloons of the period.