[Mg-mmm] [mg-tabc] Bodywork designers

[Mike Hughes]

"With MG producing new models quite frequently
from 1929 on, one thing I have never come
across is the names of anyone connected with
drawing up the body designs.

Was there a design team and who do we owe thanks
to for the body lines of the various MMM and T Type
sports and the other saloon and tourer models?"


Interesting question, Clive!

M.G. Lore has it that Cecil Kimber himself was very interested in the styling
of the M.G. offerings.  In addition several coachbuilders supplied bodies for
M.G. in the Kimber era:  Charlesworth, Allingham, Cresta, Styles, Tickford,
and others,  while Carbodies of Coventry probably supplied the bulk of the
pre-war coachwork.  It would not be out of the question that coachbuilders
either actively prospected for business or were invited, perhaps by Kimber
himself, to submit body styling proposals for consideration.  That would have
been fairly common practice in the motor trade back in the days before the
advent of corporate styling departments.  Remember that the birth of M.G. is
credited to Kimber himself designing and producing special bodied Morris cars
inside William Morris' own repair shop.  Remember, too, that William Lyons got
his start  in the Automobile business expanding the Swallow sidecar operation
to design and build special bodies for the Austin Seven!

Of course, we know by whom and how the final body of the coachbuilt era of
M.G. was "styled."  The TF body was done in-house at Abingdon when Syd
Enever's MGA prototype was passed over for production by upper management in
favor of the Healey 100.

- Mike Hughes  -t?t-
  '37 TA 0512
  Alexandria, Virginia