Celebration confusion
The beginning and Old Number One
Just as it can be said that some journalists never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so too it can be said that some companies never let the facts get in the way of a good marketing opportunity.
MG is a company with a proud history that stretches back to the days when Cecil Kimber, then General Manager of Morris Garages in Oxford, organised for a handful of Morris Cowleys to be modified with special bodies by Charles Raworth and sold as the Morris Garages two-seater Super Sports model. There was also the larger Super Sports, on the Oxford chassis and, earlier in the same year, a small Chummy model on the Cowley chassis.
This was in 1923 and even as early as 1927 these Raworth-bodied cars were referred to by the company itself, in a salesmen’s booklet entitled The Story of the M.G. Sports, as the first M.G. Sports Cars.
Morris Garages introduced the now famous MG octagon emblem that same year, used for the first time in an advertisement in March 1923 for the M.G. Super Sports Morris. The MG octagon emblem was registered by Cecil Kimber as a trademark of Morris Garages on 1 May 1924. Many people believe this date is the start of MG as a car maker, with the official 90th anniversary events taking place in 2014. Others believe the correct date for the start of MG production was with the Super Sports models the previous year, and wish to see the centenary held more appropriately in 2023.
In 1925, Kimber had a special one-off car built by two Morris Garages employees: Frank Stevens and Charlie Martin, specifically to enter the Land’s End Trial. Kimber easily won a gold medal on the trial, which
