Inventing the MGA

This, I promise you, is not meant to be a routine history of the MGA, which we all know was a great car and a huge success. This time around, I thought I would bring you some of the influences which led to the launch of the new car and how they affected its public image; also some often-ignored off-shoots of the mainstream design and some of the events surrounding the MGA’s remarkable seven year career. It’s important to remember that the MGA, which went on sale in 1955 was rather different from the car which Abingdon had conceived some years before.

Let’s start, then, with the pretty little one-off machine above. Superficially it might look just like an MGA but, under the skin, it was pure race-specification MG TD. Abingdon built it to make George Phillips’ private Le Mans entry of 1951 a better aerodynamic proposition than it had been in 1950. Registered UMG 400, it could reach 116mph