MG TC - A Contender in the American Sports Car Market

Like the HRG, the TC’s design dated from the 1930s. However, here the similarities end because the MG became the world’s most popular sports car for the early post-war years. With the British government encouraging its car makers to export their products to gain valuable foreign currency, the stylish, practical two-seater, that was good for a top speed of 75mph (121km/h), brought MG a global audience, first in Australia and then, even more significantly, in America. MG stands for Morris Garages and the company was the creation of its general manager, Cecil Kimber, who possessed a formidable flair for style and form. The TC’s visual origins are to be found in the J2 Midget of 1932. The open two-seater with its wire spoked weels, double humped scuttle, cutaways doors and bolster petrol tank, with all enveloping wings following in 1933, fathered an impressively stylistic line that was destined to survive until 1955.

The J2 was succeeded by the P-type midget of 1934, but the TC’s mechanical forebar was the larger Wolsley-engined 1.3 litre TA of 1936. This was replaced by the outwardly similar but Morris-powered 1.2 litre TB of 1939. The war interrupted production and when the MG factory at Abingdon, Berkshire restarted motor manufacture in 1945, the TB was dusted off, mildly updated and renamed the TC. Initially it was only available in black.

Although by then an archaic design which lacked independent front suspension and sporting a body that did not posses a whiff of aerodynamic refinement, the public nevertheless responded to its undoubted charm. A car-hungry marketplace that was singularly bereft of open two-seaters, and a selling price of a little over 500 pounds did the rest.

When the TC’s hinged windscreen was in the fold-flat position with the wind blowing through the driver’s hair, it felt as though this harshly sprung little car was doing 90mph (145km/h), rather than the 75mph (121km/h) of which it was capable. By the time production ceased in 1950, an unprecedented 10,000 of these MGs had been sold, of which 65% were dispatched overseas. It was, to coin the company’s corporate advertising slogan, ‘the sports car America loved first’, and the TC paved the way for the outwardly similar TD. This was enhanced with independent front suspension. A total of 30,000 were produced , of which some 80% found American customers. This was in turn replaced by the TF of 1953, the last of the line, which survived until 1955. But MG’s transatlantic successes had not been wasted on its competitors at home and abroad. The race for the American sports car market was on!