Four Small Wheels 1/2005

Early Midgets at Le Mans by David Blumlein
One of the inevitable developments in the nature of the Le Mans 24-Hour race that I bemoan greatly is the loss of the "tiddlers". Up to the mid-sixties the field comprised many small engined machines of greatly differing provenance all of which added so much character and colour to the scene and, of course, lots of them were more akin to the road-cars than were the ever-specialising sports-racers which naturally captured the public's eye. Now I understand fully the reason why they had to be phased out because the increasing speed differential was becoming far too great a risk; Le Mans had survived the enormous 1955 tragedy and any obvious source of potential injury had to be eliminated in the interests of all concerned with the future of the great race. Charles Deutsch's improvised idea to supercharge the baby flat-twin Panhard engine in 1964 was, I suppose, the last desperate attempt to keep the tiddlers alive. If the clock cannot be put back, we can at least look back, especially to the pre-war Le Mans races wherein were plenty of tiddlers. SLM 43 have recently furnished us with some M.G. Midgets and it is to the background of these that I have enjoyed giving thought over the Christmas holiday period. M.G. stands, of course, for Morris Garages and it was the enthusiasm and drive of Cecil Kimber which first made available improved versions of William Morris's rather staid Cowley models. The outcome was the gradual emergence of M.G. as a separate marque, offering cars of a more sporting nature by the late twenties. We are concerned here with the arrival of the Morris Minor, designed as a serious rival to the successful Austin Seven which for much of the first five years of its production had been outsold by Morris's Cowley, this albeit a much bigger car. But the shrewd Morris realised that the demand for a smaller car was becoming very apparent by 1927 and thus the Minor was born, very hurriedly too. One big catalyst in this process was Morris's acquisition of the Wolseley company in February 1927 for with it he inherited a very competent small overhead camshaft engine whose vertical camshaft drive served as the armature for the dynamo.	Wolseley had accumulated much experience with overhead-cam engines, having built Hispano-Suiza V-8 aero engines thus equipped during the First World War as the Viper W4A; during the twenties the company offered a range of o.h.c.-engined models, even stretching to an eight-cylinder. (It is interesting that Morris had further purchased in 1924 E.G. Wigley of Soho, Birmingham, a component manufacturer which had already in 1922 developed a small four-cylinder engine with a similar vertical cam-drive!). Suffice to say at present that the announcement of the Morris Minor with the Wolseley engine provided Kimber with the basis to create a small two-seater M.G. with a wider appeal than their current 14/40 and 18/80 models. The Midget, as it came to be known, first came to public attention on the M.G. stand at the 1928 Olympia Motor Show, where blue and red examples were on display, only the former possessing at the time any sort of mechanicals! Not unnaturally production of this M-Type did not get underway until the spring of 1929 with engines coming from Wolseley but a mere two months later five of them were entered for the popular J.C.C. High Speed Trial at Brooklands and all five won gold medals with three of the cars well in the lead! In the following year's Brooklands Double Twelve race half a dozen Midgets shone, scooping the team prize. Le Mans undoubtedly beckoned! Two specially prepared cars with larger fuel tanks in their tails necessitating spare wheels carried amidships, and other modifications dictated by the needs of a long-distance race, arrived on the Sarthe starting grid but they did not cover themselves in glory: the Samuelson/Kindell car fractured an oil pipe at dusk and quickly ran its bearings, while the Murton Neale/Jack Hicks car had gone off the road temporarily while in the former's hands (this was his first road race!) and eventually succumbed to a broken crank-shaft, almost certainly owing to over-revving as the clutch was slipping.

The initial overall success for the M-Type fired Kimber's enthusiasm and he set his sights on M.G. being the first 750c.c. car to reach 100 m.p.h. having heard that Austin was seeking to do the same. Now it came to pass that Kimber had come into possession of a Rally, a small French sporting car whose low build was reminiscent of the Brooklands Riley, and this inspired a new underslung chassis which was the basis for all future Kimber Midgets. A prototype record car thus equipped, the EX120, was entrusted at Montlhéry to the hands of Captain George Eyston and by February 1931 he had wound the little machine up to 103m.p.h. Such success had an enormous impact at the time and it spawned the sporting C-Type M.G. (or Montlhéry model as it was sometimes known). This car really hit the headlines when the new model occupied the first five places in that year's Brooklands Double Twelve before the eyes of most of M.G.'s workforce!

And so back to Le Mans where Samuelson and works test driver Freddie Kindell (C-Type) finished technically in 7th place but were unclassified because Samuelson, trusting an unreliable car-mounted clock, mistakenly started a last lap on 3-cylinders before half-past three thus not completing it within the thirty-minute requirements. The second entry in 1931 was the C-Type of Mrs Chetwynd - a relative of Sir Henry Birkin - partnered by H.H. Stisted; this was very unusually for the time, painted in silver with red wings, but it retired with engine failure after only thirty laps.

A split fuel tank eliminated the single M.G. entry in 1932 but the following year a C-Type brought the marque its first Le Mans success when Baumer and Ford came home a very fine 6th overall, winning the 750c.c. class and easily outstripping M.G.'s emerging rival in the market place, the Singer Nine which on this occasion could not do better than 13th.

The next evolution in the Midget story was the announcement in March 1934 of the new P-series two-seaters, differing chiefly from their predecessors by having a new three-bearing 850c.c. engine.

In retrospect these first series cars became known as the PA model and one very standard example found its way to Le Mans in 1934 entered by Mme Itier with Charles Duruy as co-driver. They steered the car to 17th overall but Singer this time managed 15th while a French-entered J4 750c.c. MG retired early on in the race with engine trouble.
By 1935 Kimber had his sights on M.G. winning the Rudge Biennial Cup for which one year's performance acted as the qualifier for the following year's cup. Noting that only 47.38m.p.h. overall speed was required for the first round, Kimber thought in terms of a publicity coup and three PA cars were specially prepared with cycle wings, and essential modifications such as twin fuel pumps, stone guards for the headlights etc, for George Eyston to enter for all female crews. They were quickly labelled as Eyston's 'Dancing Daughters' but were in fact six very capable lady drivers: car 55 was for Doreen Evans, well know for her M.G. exploits, and Barbara Skinner (the future Mrs Bolster) who held the ladies' record at Shelsley Walsh, car 56 for Miss Richmond and Mrs Simpson and car 57 for Mrs Eaton and Barbara Allan who went on to lap Brooklands at 120m.p.h. in a Bentley.
All three cars and crews ran like clockwork, the only requirement during the race being the replacement of a single tail-light bulb. At the end car 56 finished 24th, 55 25th and 57 26th while Singers had come 16th, 19th, 20th, 22nd and 23rd, but the M.G.s had beaten the Austin Sevens! A further French entered Midget had retired with a supercharger failure.
Two outcomes: the Singer threat prompted M.G. to offer the PB Midget with larger 939c.c. engine in June 1935 and production of this car ran for nine months. But, alas, it was to be the last of the overhead-cam Midgets for William Morris (Lord Nuffield) had decided to sell M.G. and Wolseley to Morris Motors and, with much prompting from Leonard Lord, the future Austin boss, closed down the M.G. racing department. It was in an atmosphere of gloom that the Le Mans team returned to their base at Abingdon.