MG Quiz

With that answer you have plenty of time to keep looking for a question while the competition continues :lol:

Actually Bryan you're not too far off

A very tricky question there from the newcomer and the latest man to get his name in the MG Quiz hall of Fame. :woohoo:

I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more of Gadget2466 over the coming months.

Well it has been a very busy day on the MG Quiz and as promised I will now post my answer, which Gadget2466 has confirmed by pm so the two cars;

The year 1965 connects these two vehicles

First up Gadget2466 posted the 1965 Lenham Spitfire GT, which is currently up for sale. The only MG links I could find are given in the text below the photo. We did originally say the questions should relate to MG in some way. Bryan you can now see how close you were :broon:


Here you see it at the Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit, 26th June 2011

The first Lenham, a Sprite-based GT - was built by company founder Julian Booty in a small garage behind the Dog and Bear hotel in the village of Lenham in Kent. Very soon after finishing the car, Julian became interested in glass fibre technique, and enrolled on a course to gain a better knowledge of the material, which in turn led to him designing and producing glass fibre body parts, initially for Austin Healey Sprites, MG Midgets and later for Triumph Spitfires.

Spitfires were enjoying considerable success in motorsport at the time and so a full GT conversion was designed at Lenham to capitalise on this market. However, it appears that very few of these handsome conversions were ever sold by Lenham and the car pictured is considered by historic racing pundits to be unique, probably being the only 1965 Lenham Spitfire GT of its type running in historic racing today.


The second photo is an MG based car, the 1965 WSM 1100 MG here it is from the front.



Douglas Wilson-Spratt was a test pilot and pilot at Bristol, before opening in 1954, the "Delta Garage" in Bedfordshire. In 1962 he was joined by Jim MacManus, the WSM brand name originating from their initials. Their first car was released in December 1962 and is based on an Austin-Healey Sprite. In 1963 they produced an MGB is bodied by WSM, which competed in races for the next 60 years. In 1965 they performed the transformation of an MG 1100, in to a comfortable, fast (100+ mph), economic (30+ mpg) 4 seater.


Here we see one ready for fitting out
I will post a new question soon

Can i add a little mor information please. WSM 201 was the first car built by Douglas Wilson- Spratt a carried the registration DWS 97 (shown on the 1100 in the picture) WSM 208 was the 10th car to be built and was completed in 2009, 44 years after the first one, it now carries registration DWS 97 and is reguraly raced by D W Spratts Son Tony.

I understand that DW Spratt was an engineer working for Bristol Aircraft Company and a test driver for their car division.

I was a bit close with the Spitfire :woohoo: it was the rear wings that i recognised.

Very good question.

Next question, all you need to do is look at this partial time line and tell us who he is?

















p.s. a few details would be nice, good luck

Gerald Palmer, designer of the ZA/ZB Magnettes as well as as the Wolseley and Riley models. He has a special place in my wall of automotive heros being as he grew up in the country where I was born.

From Wiki:
Gerald Marley Palmer (January 20, 1911 - June 23, 1999) was a British car designer.

Although he was born in England, Gerald Palmer grew up in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where his father was chief engineer to the state run railways. He returned to England in 1927 where he started an engineering apprenticeship with Scammell the commercial vehicle builders and studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic. In his spare time he designed and built a sports car for the racing driver Joan Richmond and called it the Deroy after a tin mine his father owned in Mozambique. He completed it in 1936 and drove the car to the M.G. works at Abingdon where he showed it to Cecil Kimber who was clearly impressed and arranged for Palmer to be interviewed by chief engineer Vic Oak. This resulted in the offer of a job in the Morris drawing office at Cowley with responsibility for development of a new generation of M.G. cars. During 1937 and 1938, Gerald Palmer was responsible for heading up the design of the MG Y-type which, due to the onset of hostilities, would not actually see the light of day until 1947.

With the outbreak of war in 1939 this work was suspended and Gerald Palmer worked on portable anaesthetic apparatus, the Oxford Vaporiser, for front line use. On completion of this he pursued development on a new 2-stroke engine and production of Tiger Moth training aircraft.

Already looking beyond the war, Jowett cars of Bradford had decided it was time to move on from their basic range of cars and vans and their new managing director, Charles Reilly, placed an advertisement for a chief designer. The name of the company was not mentioned in the advertisement but at the age of 30 Palmer applied for the job. He initially had doubts when he found out who he would be working for as it meant moving from the motor industry heartlands to a small company not specially renowned for innovation. Charles Reilly must have been impressed as he pursued Palmer and in January 1942 persuaded him to accept the offer.

Starting with a clean sheet Palmer went on to design the radical new Jowett Javelin including designing a new flat four engine. The first prototype car was finished on 25 August 1944 and production started in late 1947 with cars reaching the first customers in 1948. The car was well received but was expensive and really beyond the resources of the small Jowett company. There were problems with the engine and production volumes never reached the planned level. Body production had been outsourced to Briggs and they turned them out as ordered even though sales did not match resulting in a large stockpile and drain on Jowett's cash flow.

In 1948 Reilly left Jowett followed in 1949 by Palmer who returned to Morris where he took up the job of designer of a new range of cars for M.G., Riley and Wolseley. The results of this were the M.G. ZA Magnette and Wolseley 4/44.

In 1952 he was made chief engineer of BMC where he oversaw the design and launch of the Riley Pathfinder and Wolseley 6/90, also being involved in the design of the MGA Twin-cam engine. He became a director but in 1955 fell foul of Leonard Lord, the chairman, and was dismissed. He was succeeded by Alec Issigonis.

He then joined Vauxhall Motors working with the team responsible for the Victor and Viva ranges. He retired in 1972 but did not give up on innovation. He claimed in his book, The Auto Architect, that he designed the Oxford Hoist, a device for assisting disabled people. However this claim was untrue as the Oxford Hoist was designed by John PayneTemplate:Fact supplied by John Payne. Gerald Palmer also restored and competed in a Type 44 Bugatti and a 2 litre Mercedes-Benz.

PQD said
In 1963 they produced an MGB is bodied by WSM, which competed in races for the next 60 years

WOW a Doctor in the making (WHO I hear you ask). :bust:

I feel seriosly inadequate at times (my wife agrees - in general terms) when on the subject of MG's

I know the feeling Mr Forgetful, trying to find a suitable question which is not found on the first web page search is nigh-on impossible. It'd take me a week or more to get through the latest question!!!!

I thought Showing a Lenham Midget would be too easy,

Gadget2466 :lol: I like the fact you wanted to post a pic of a Lenham Midget and in your haste posted a Lenham Spitfire GT instead.

Well that question of mine didn't last very long did it. :yesnod: Well done Martin, the keys are all yours.

Sorry, my browser was saying the site was down until I refreshed...doh!

Anyway, which MG shared two visible items with a London Taxi Cab? In fact, in both its MkI and MkII styles, these items were shared with the same cab in both its earlier and later re-styles. I hope you can see the light, Mr Forgetful! :broon:

I've just got in from Golf (again) - and, well, I am drawn to the rear but have so many piccies up and running I can't see the light for the trees so to speak :omg: I'm working on it Going for lunch first though - steak, french fries, tomato, mushrooms aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Back in a while :coat:

shhhh, they'll never know I intended showing the Lenham Midget instead of the Spitfire...that is just between the two of us :slapme: ........Besides, Bryan would have got it in a flash if I had pressed the right button!

Gary.

Don't worry Gary, your secret is safe with me, no one actually reads anything written here, unless the sentence commences 'The next question is....'

Here is an MG - TAXI link I found..


Check out the registration plate


Taxi cab history stretches back a long way, to at least 1906. The iconic London taxi cab we all know was a post war machine, the FX, which was developed by co-operation between Austin, the coachbuilder Carbodies of Coventry and London taxi dealers Mann and Overton.

The FX was underpowered, and was replaced by the FX2, which had an all-new chassis, a new 1.8 litre 14hp ohv petrol engine and a prototype coachbuilt body to exactly the same design as would be fitted to the FX3.

The FX3 was offered with a 2.2litre ohv petrol engine and an all-steel body from Carbodies. It was available from 1948-1958. The first prototype FX3, JXN 841 went on test alongside the FX2, JXN 842. Aftermarket Perkins and Standard diesel engine conversions prompted Austin to develop their own diesel engine which appeared in 1956

The ubiquitous FX4 appeared in 1958 (prototype VLW 431?) with a 2.2 litre diesel engine and automatic gearbox as standard. It remained, albeit heavily modified, in production until 1997. With the Mini, it stands as one of the longest lived British motor designs.

So taking the immediate post war period as the time for the MG parts to be fitted to the cab and your light clue and 'two visible items' I will say the headlights from the MG TC?

The 1989 Fairway London Cab's front interior heater is the same as fitted to an MGB, which the drivers always said was very poor.

I do know that the later MCW Metrocab had various switches and controls from the Maestro/Montego range.

After all that I'm still not sure and quite possibly all the above is irrelevant :lol: