By Graham Robson It was on arriving at MG’s headquarters in Abington, near Oxford, for the very first time (in the 1960s), that I suddenly had to decide exactly what sort of business I was visiting. Was I about to enter a manufacturing facility, or merely a cute, old-fashioned, assembly plant? In fact I think…
By Graham Robson Long ago, in the early 20th century, every British road car was built in the same way. First there was a chassis frame, then all the running gear was bolted to it, and finally a body shell was added. In almost every case the body was based on a hand-crafted wooden skeleton,…
Shortly after the introduction of the MGB, work began apace on a potential replacement – little did the crew at Abingdon realize that it would soldier on through the end of the next decade – and it was decided that the rear suspension of the next car should have a more modern design (a decision…
To read the first part of this series, click the following link: Part 1 In which Sam Bennett continues his story of life in the MG factory during the emergence of the MG sports car. By Marcham Rhoade I carried on working in the rectification department for some time on the J2s being produced at…
To read earlier parts in this series, click the following links: Part 1 Part 2 In which Sam Bennett continues to describe life and times at the MG factory in the early days. By Marcham Rhoade Pressed steel used to make the chassis for the MGs, and the bodies came from Carbodies of Coventry. As…
To read earlier parts of this series, click the following links: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 By Marcham Rhoade Sam Bennett concludes his story of life and times at Abingdon. At the end of each September, when the competition season was finished, I was sent over to the service department to work on cars…
In these days of mass produced automobiles, using more and more robots, and fewer and fewer human beings, have you ever thought what it was like in the early days of sports car production? What sort of people put your dinosaur of a British car together? Well, come with us back to the 1930s (when…
Those Were The Days…MG’s Abingdon Factory by Brian Moylan Reviewed by Robert Rushing, MG Club of St. Louis I was trying to determine what this little gem reminded me of when I sat down to write this review. It’s not really like Ken Smith’s excellent book, Aspects of Abingdon, despite the fact that it covers the…
The first car I ever sat in may have been an MG. However, I can say with complete confidence that the first car I ever saw was an MG—an MG TA back in 1938, when my father took me to the Abingdon Works on a British bank holiday. The factory was open so that families…
I could never understand why there was such a general dislike of the MGC, which was introduced in October 1967. The “Big” Healey had been a pretty popular and successful sports car, but the MGB’s chassis was far superior, lighter, and handled better than the big brother. I also couldn’t quite figure out why there…
