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MG TA

MG TA

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MG TAMG TAMG TAMG TAMG TA
MG TAMG TAMG TAMG TAMG TA
MG TAMG TAMG TAMG TAMG TA
MG TAMG TA
Lot number 151
Hammer value £3,400
Description MG TA
Registration N/A
Year 1936
Colour Red
Engine size 1,292 cc
Chassis No. TA/0268

Launched in 1936, the TA was the first in a series of five sporting roadsters (TA to TF) that was to keep the MG brand high on the wish list of keen drivers right up until 1955.

As part of Leonard Lord’s plan to rationalise Morris Motors Limited following his promotion to General Manager in 1932, one of his first actions was to close down the MG design office at Abingdon and move sports car development to the Cowley plant near Oxford. The TA was the first fruit of this new regime and replaced the much-loved Midget range which had been produced at Abingdon since 1929.

Built around a simple ladder-type frame designed by MG’s gifted engineer Hubert Charles, it was larger, wider and slightly softer than the Midget but proved an exhilarating machine nonetheless. It used a modified Morris/Wolseley power train, including a Wolseley Ten-derived overhead-valve 52bhp 1292cc engine and four-speed gearbox with synchromesh on the top two ratios. With 75mph potential, it had effective hydraulic brakes to slow things down when required.

Only available as a two-seater, it had a steel body fixed to a traditional wood frame with a pressed steel scuttle, flowing front wings, free-standing headlamps and a large rear-mounted external fuel tank for extended touring. A total of 3,003 TAs were produced until it was replaced by the TB in May 1939.

As with the Lancia Augusta March Special elsewhere in this catalogue, this particular MG TA was recently discovered languishing in a shed behind a detached house in Kidderminster after the owner of the property had died. Nothing at all is known of the history of the car which comes with no documentation whatsoever. It does, however, have a chassis plate bearing the number TA/0268 which would indicate that it was probably made fairly early in the production run c.1936-37.

Clearly incomplete, it is being sold here for parts or as a brave restoration project with no reserve and strictly ‘as seen’.

AMENDMENT: Further research has shown that this car is probably the 16th production TA to be made, the first few being pre-production prototypes (commencing chassis no. TA 0251) and the first production car being chassis no. TA 0253 built in June 1936 according to marque historian Anders Clausager. This car was completed on 26th June. It also has the correct type MPJG 1292cc engine and gearbox, narrow rear wings and wider fuel tank of the early cars.

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