Gerald Palmer joined the Morris drawing office in 1936 and took on responsibility for the MG Y-Type saloon. He moved to Jowett in 1942, before returning to the Nuffield Group in 1949. He later recalled: ‘All I had to do was produce new cars for Riley and MG. There was no product planning, nothing. All I had to do was come up with ideas which I hoped were accepted. Luckily, they were!’
His first challenge was to create replacements for the Wolseley 4/50 and the MG Y-Type. Abingdon originally intended a 1940 launch for its Y-Type, and when it finally debuted in 1947, its bodywork already seemed faintly dated. Both new models were to be powered by the Y’s 1¼-litre XPAG engine, but the 1951 Austin/Nuffield merger to create the British Motor Corporation resulted in a policy change. Leonard Lord, the chairman of BMC, decreed that power for the forthcoming MG Magnette ZA would be from the 1.5-litre B-series engine. However, as this unit was still under development, the Wolseley 4/44 spearheaded the Palmer family. If visitors to the 1952 London Motor Show found the 1250cc Morris XPAG unit in this reassuringly familiar, the styling was a revelation. The famous radiator grille with its illuminated ‘Ghost Light’ was combined with Lanciainspired lines, giving a sense of Continental style to Home Counties suburbia. Palmer later explained he wanted to approach Italian themes with the design, saying: ‘With this new car, I had to get the roof and the floorpan right down, which partly explains the unit construction. Another thing was that Pressed Steel were doing the body engineering, and it all made volume
