On Tue, 27 Jun 1995, Denise Thorpe wrote:
> Sometime in '79 or '80, Donald Healy spoke at a brunch for the San Diego MG
> Club and the Triumph Sports Car Club of San Diego.
He said that:
>
> Cecil Kimber, the father of MG, was an octagon freak (probably not his exact
> words). Everything he owned that could possibly be octagon shaped was;
>tables,
> plates, clocks, what-have-you. When he died, his only daughter inherited
> everthing. It turned out that he was a packrat and a doodler and had kept
> every piece of paper on which he'd ever scribbled. Included in his estate
> were endless sheets of paper with octagons drawn on them with every possible
> combination of letters drawn in the octagons. "M" and "G" don't stand for
> anything, they were just the only letters that fit well inside an octagon.
There was, in fact, a Morris Garages, a subsidiary of Morris managed by
Cecil Kimber, before there was an MG car. When they began to tart up
Morrises, I understand the first ones had both the Morris name and MG on
the cars. Since these were prepared by and sold by Morris Garages, it
makes sense that that is what MG would stand for. But the thing that
really makes this seem like a bit of leg pulling is that other letters
besides MG fit perfectly well within an octagon.
> the company Morris *Garage* in honor of Sir William Morris. Why not Morris
>Loo (ML)? He probably had one of those, too. And why the *initials* of
>Morris
Morris Garages was there first--it was a dealership.
> Denise "I know everything and I'm never wrong" Thorpe
Everything? How about how to spell Donald Healey's name. OK, cheap shot.
What does Rolls Royce call their mascot (no fair looking at references)?
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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