The MG C-type is a car from British Motor Corporation, built from 1931 to 1932, when streamlining and independent suspension were arriving together. Under the bonnet: 746 .
The background
The MG C-type is a sports car that was produced by MG from 1931 to 1932. It was designed for competition use and based on the M-Type Midget. A special car, called the EX120, had been developed from the M-Type for George Eyston to make an attempt on the 750 cc class 24-hour record at Autodrome de Montlhéry in France. The attempt was successful and a series of replica cars were made which became the C-Type.
The car used a tuned short-stroke (73 mm) version of the bevel gear driven overhead camshaft engine from the 1928 Morris Minor and Wolseley 10 with a single SU carburettor and a new crankshaft producing 44 bhp (33 kW) at 6400 rpm. It could from 1932 be had with the crossflow head to be seen later on the MG J-type and a Powerplus supercharger version was also available with 52.4 bhp (39.1 kW) at 6500 rpm. Drive was to the rear wheels through a four-speed non-synchromesh gearbox. The chassis was new and took the form of a ladder frame with tubular cross members and passed under the rear axle. The suspension used half-elliptic springs and Hartford friction shock absorbers with rigid front and rear axles and centre lock wire wheels. The car had a wheelbase of 81 inches (2057 mm) and a track of 42 inches (1067 mm). The body, which had no doors, was metal over an ash frame and had a pointed tail which held the spare wheel and cycle type front wings. Later cars had a more conventional rear with a slab-type fuel tank. The exhaust pipe was routed outside the car and finished with a spectacular fishtail. The record-breaking cars had a streamlined cowl over the radiator, but this
The engineering
Power comes from 746 . It weighs 732 kg. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Its family tree is legible: assembly was at Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Chevrolet Suburban, the Bugatti Type 57, the Tatra 54 — show what else the money bought that year. Its British Motor Corporation stablemates include the Austin 10 and the Austin 12.
What it costs now
There is no federal ownership record for the MG C-type — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.