On Thu, 14 Dec 95, thorpe@kegs.saic.com (Denise Thorpe) wrote:
>Okay, here it comes...
>
>A long time ago, I promised to tell an alternate MOWOG story as soon as I
>found out who told it to me and called them and asked them for additional
>details. I did manage to find out who told the story in the first place,
>but calling them hasn't gotten to the top of the "to do" list yet. Now
>that the story has been shot down by the discovery of MOWOG on pre-war
>parts (assuming pre-war cars still have their original parts), I think
>I'll forgo getting details and just spill what I've heard.
>
>The story goes that MOWOG stands for "Ministry Of War, Oxford Group."
>During WWII, manufacturing space and equipment were needed for the war
>effort so manufacturing of items not related to the war could only be
>carried on with the permission of the Ministry of War. Hence, all large,
>cast items that weren't destined for airplanes or tanks and had this
>permission carried the word MOWOG.
>
>I've always liked this story because it makes MOWOG an actual acronym. If
>_I_ had to carve letters in a casting form, I'd carve as few as possible by
>only using the first letter of each word. This would have made it MWG.
>Notice that I said MWG and not MWM. If the last word were "MG," why would
>they use the "G" and not the "M?" Of course, now that I know that TVR is
>from TreVor wilkeRson, I realize that it's pointless to try to apply logic
>to British car acronyms.
>
>Denise Thorpe, who still thinks MG is a doodle
>thorpe@kegs.saic.com
>
>
Denise, I love your story! The MOWAG is an example of the silly fun we have. I
love going to TC meets and listen to the discussions about the correct color of
45 to 47 TC firewalls ( it varies from green to grey and every variation in
between) Of course there is no correct color dispite those who have had
original specs of metal analysed with a spectrograph. The company after the war
bought surplus tank (green) and Ship (grey) paint. The used it on parts not
likely to be seen (firewall , engines etc.) These were cheap cars. As Nigel
the
paint mixer ran out of paint he added new paint indiscriminately to the vat.
Thus from day to day or shift to shift the color varied from green to grey and
everything in between. Your MOWAG story is better.
Mike (my firewall is green) Leckstein
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