MG SA VA WA |
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1936 MG SA saloon: Image Submitted by Rick Feibusch
MG, Models SA, VA, WA: 1935-1938By Geoff Wheatley If I say MG to the vast majority of people they usually think of a small open top sports car that most people wanted when they were young... Some continued to want these cars well into our middle age and in this scribes case well into old age! Some say its holding on to our youth even when its more difficult to get out of a MG than to get in! However, there are some rather special vehicles that came out of the Abingdon factory that only share a fraction of the MG story and today are often forgotten. Between 1936 and 1939 resulting from the internal change of policy at the Abingdon factory a unique range of luxury cars were produced that completely changed the image of MG if only for a brief period of motor history, starting with the MG. SA launched in the fall of 1935/36. Question: Was Morris Motors putting a slender foot into the luxury market knowing that if it failed Cowley would not get a blast from Billy Morris who was always watching the pennies and of course the profit? The response at the 1935 Motor Show was more than encouraging especially when we remember that until then the company had not been associated with the production of large luxury vehicles designed to appeal to a small but obviously affluent section of the motoring public. The fact that the Abingdon operation had been taken over by Morris Motors Cowley and was no longer an independent operation certainly had something to do with this additional range of vehicles. Morris Motors did have the Wolsley range which was certainly a quality vehicle but never elegant or sporty as illustrated by the fact that Nuffield owned a Wosley for many years while his wife, Lady Nuffield, sported a Rolls and an open top Bentley at their country home. The power unit for the 1936 SA was a modified Morris 2 liters engine not exactly a prestige power unit but reliable and not expensive to maintain. However, these modifications cause some delay in meeting the orders obtained at the !935 Motor Show in fact some would be purchasers waited as long as six months for their car which did not exactly embellish the new image of the MG SA. To add salt to the situation the 2.5 liter SS Jaguar produced by William Lyons was equally elegant in style and design and was at least 20% less expensive than the SA. Not as fast however, with even with a 2.5 liter side valve engine made under contact for Jaguar by the Standard Motor Company, a leading supplier of engines to about 60% of the British motor industry. (Remembered today as the company that saved Ferguson Tractors when Ford stopped making their engines after WWII. That's another story for another time!) 1938 MG SA Tourer: Image Submitted by Rick Feibusch
Side by side there was little to choose between the SA and the Jaguar, both extremely attractive in design and style that today we associate with the rich and famous on their yachts in Monte Carlo in the prewar era. Once the production had been sorted out at Abingdon and Cowley was able to supply the important things like an engine and chassis the SA did fairly well within its limited market. However, with Jaguar offering a similar package priced at just over three hundred pounds against the SA priced at over four hundred, the fact that the SA was about ten miles faster was not a big selling point for the extra money.
1937 MG VA The SA and later the VA with a different power unit continued for about two years which by modern day economics would hardly be seen as an economical success. However, the general policy of MG had been to bring out various versions of their production almost on a yearly basis as any study of the prewar models will show. Why this was the case is difficult to evaluate however we do know that Kimber often encouraged this policy and seemed to think that you had to offer a never ending variety of vehicles to sustain a market share. In reality this may well have been the reason why the company never made any real profit and usually ended each year in the red with Kimber going cap in hand to the boss for financial assistance. All this came to an end when Nuffield sold his MG Interest to the Morris Corporation in 1935 and Cowley took control of the Abingdon operation. However, this was a short term situation with Nuffield was back in control with his finger on the purse strings by the spring of 1937. 1938 MG WA DHC: Image Submitted by Rick Feibusch
As already suggested it is feasible that the introduction of the SA vehicles were a direct result of this change in policy as the Morris Motors Board, like others in the business was upset by the success of William Lyons and his SS Jaguar range of vehicles.
As one motor correspondence of the day wrote: "The success of Jaguar is a prime example of the small company showing the big companies how to provide the right product at the right price at the right time for the right audience"
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