MG RALLY STARS AND THEIR GREAT DRIVES
If ever you had the pleasure of visiting the Competitions Department at Abingdon in the 1950s and 1960s, you might have been surprised by the sheer variety of machinery which was packed into that cavernous workshop. Although this building was located in the heart of the MG factory, you could have looked round to see MGBs, Midgets, Minis, Austin-Healeys, Sprites and, later, Triumphs too – all of which were being built, or refurbished, for motorsport readiness by the same team of experienced technicians. Not only that but service ‘barges’ from Wolseley and Austin might also have been tucked into a corner.
Comps’ had been set up that way when the Works team was re-activated in 1955. It was BMC, rather than purely MG, finance which kept the programmes rolling and the policy was always to use ‘horses for courses’; to send the best possible cars to contest an astonishing variety of events all round the world. This explains why an MGB might be sent to Le Mans, a Mini could tackle the Monte Carlo Rally and an Austin-Healey 3000 might go to
