Did MG create the sports car?

Some say Vauxhall did. And there were sports cars amongst the 39 Autocar named as motoring landmarks this week. Usual suspects, Austin 7, Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, Model T Ford, Jeep, etc but not one MG. Some cars became classics because there weren’t many. MGs were classics even though there were lots. Cecil Kimber’s original recipe was so good – use bits from a cheap production car, polish and refine them, smarten them up, make them a bit faster but not so fast as to be dangerous and they could be sold at a premium. From the humble Morris Garages’ sporty special to the K3 of 1933 raced by Nuvolari, MGs were charismatic. When a team went on a recce in January for the April 1934 Mille Miglia, they were received by the King of Italy, Il Duce Benito Mussolini and Enzo Ferrari manager of the works Alfa Romeos. They finished first and second in class when Britain was still a motor racing backwater

MGs were jazz age cars. They exemplified the suburban idyll, the Wodehousian world of Blandings or Jeeves and Wooster. MG was the sports 2-seater born and bred at Brooklands, made almost within the University of Oxford and trialled on British hills. It may have lacked the glamour and riches of the contemporary Bentley; MG was virtually classless not pretentious. A classic emblem for dashing young men in blazers and Bright Young Things with short skirts and bobbed hair it was picnic sandwiches and Anyone for Tennis?  John Betjeman's subaltern would have whisked Miss Joan Hunter Dunn from Camberley to Brighton or Gretna Green in an MG, never a Hillman.

The MG that wanted to be a Bentley, the 18/80

Seldom fast or expensive and not always Midget, MGs were as much part of the British way of life as summer weekends or romantic novels.

MGs of the 1920s and 1930s lit the spark of sports motoring. In the 1940s RAF pilots climbed out of MGs into Spitfires. In America, heartland of large softly sprung gas-guzzlers, the MG was a nimble sports car raced by amateurs. Autocar should at least have remembered the 1962 MGB, the first open 2-seater to banish scuttle shake. Sports cars used to rattle to pieces before the B gave them backbone. It may be regarded nowadays as over-engineered and yes it was a bit heavy but you could open and close the doors without it sagging. Its stiff monocoque was exemplary.

My MGB - Heritage shell, Twin-cam M16 engine, 5-speed gearbox.

Without the MG we might never have had The Mazda MX-5, which Autocar did include. MGs were the prototype shadowed by Singer, Austin-Healey, Triumph and countless more. MG-Rover collapsed and MG was bought by the Chinese, which pretended to carry on with a sports car like the underrated MGF but the game was up. Despite the bravura even MG clubs and magazines have shown them, China MG’s dull saloons are like British Leyland’s dull badge-engineered MGs. They won’t change the world ever again.

No problem with Autocar’s choice of VW Beetle, BMW 328, Land Rover, Range Rover, Citroen DS, Trabant, Mini, Jaguar E-type, Porsche 911, Audi Quattro, Mazda MX-5, or McLaren F1 but really - Ariel Nomad? Fun and an Autocar favourite but no more of a game-changer than a dune buggy.

My MGA. 1950s masterpiece. What joy it was

Bernie and Kevin

Nobody ever portrayed Bernie better. Kevin Eason, retiring grand prix correspondent of The Times tells us more in 275 exemplary words than tens of thousands written in books about Bernie. In his valedictory column after 18 years Kevin speaks with the wry indulgence of one jack-the-lad for another.

“At the head of this extraordinary travelling circus was the ringmaster, Bernie Ecclestone. The night we first met, he stretched out his left hand for his customary pseudo-royal handshake, looked me in the eye and said: “Ah, so you’re the one writing all that sh**.”

“From that unnerving start, we were to develop as close a relationship as it is possible to have with a multi-billionaire, Duracell-powered ruler of a global sport. We clashed often, but he always took it on the chin and he could disarm me with a rotten joke or an anecdote.

“Ecclestone carries a reputation as a hard man – and he is in business – but he is paternal about his drivers, personally intervening to get Lewis Hamilton out of McLaren and into Mercedes, for example, or playing backgammon with Sebastian Vettel. Even now, he wells up when you ask him about Stuart Lewis-Evans and Jochen Rindt, two drivers he managed. Both were killed on the track.

Kevin Eason

"For all the bravado, Bernie is soft-hearted, giving millions to charity without a fuss. He loves mischief and there is always a twinkle in his eye. When he makes his pronouncements, you have to separate the facts from the wind-up – not always easy.

“In Russia last year, Vladimir Putin sent an emissary to advise on protocol. At the end of the meeting, Bernie asked Putin’s man for an opinion. “We have been asked to stage a new grand prix,” he said. “In Syria. A new circuit in Damascus. What do you think?” Putin’s man was flabbergasted, until he saw a smile crinkling at the side of Bernie’s mouth. No subject is beyond his cheek.”

This is not the Bernie who once said drivers were expendable, like light bulbs; if one goes out you remove him and screw in another. I recall Bernie’s subtle mischievousness from the 1970s. Hockenheim was still new. I watched two self-important reporters complaining that a new grandstand obstructed their view from the press box. Bernie was still fresh in his ringmaster days, viewed with deep suspicion by old-school press men: “I’ll have it moved for next year,” he reassured the pompous parties. “You see, he’s not bad. He listens to us.” Of course the stand was never moved. Anybody with half an eye could see the twinkle in Bernie’s; stupid people never guessed.

“Then”, writes Eason, “there was Ferrari, commanded by Michael Schumacher but steered by the most glamorous figure in Formula One, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the aristocratic president and chosen one of Enzo, the founder. Di Montezemolo was charismatic beyond belief, his greeting so warm we might have been related.”

Luca Cordera di Montezemolo

I can vouch for di Montezemolo. I had met Enzo, who compelled you to listen to every word. Luca made you think he was listening to you. He wasn’t, of course and he would forget you at once. Charisma won Ferrari championships; you were coerced into Ferrari. Di Montezemolo put Kevin in a 360 sports car at the Fiorano test track. Inevitably Eason spun and was slow but it secured him into the Ferrari family. Michael Scarlett and I drove Ferraris at Fiorano and we didn’t spin and although no match for the track’s test drivers our lap times weren’t at all bad. Then again the older I get the faster I was.

“Standing in the Monaco tunnel watching the old V10-powered cars screaming by was akin to standing next to a Saturn rocket launch; or at the end of the pit straight in Monza before the Italian Grand Prix where drivers came to halt and went through the start procedure. As the engine rumbled and then screeched to about 16,000rpm, the ground shook and the vibrations rippled through the air and into the chest.

“And then there is the best 15 minutes in sport. I have been to Wembley but never stood on the pitch with Manchester United or Arsenal. I have been to Wimbledon finals but not stood next to Andy Murray on court. But I have been to the Monaco Grand Prix and stood on the grid as the cars arrived, shook Jenson Button’s hand to wish him luck, chatted with Red Bull’s Christian Horner, rubbed shoulders with Roger Federer and met Michael Douglas, the Hollywood star.

I aspired to starting grids.. Guild of Motoring Writers chairman 1948 Tommy Wisdom talks to Ferrari engineer-driver Mike Parkes. Picture Eric Dymock

“To work in Formula One is to join the family; I have probably listened to more words this year from Lewis Hamilton than from my wife - and, boy, can she talk. Reporting Formula One is not a job, it is your life and not just because of the 140 or so nights in hotels and the 120,000 miles in the air. We spend weeks together, we eat together, share our jetlag together, quarrel and make up.

“For 18 years, Formula One was my family as I covered the most irritating, silly, politically incorrect, frustrating, brilliant, wild, thrilling, mad sport on the planet. And now it is over. But thanks to The Times - and Bernie - for the ride of a professional lifetime.

I was in the family, once, too. For about 15 years. Believe me Kevin, when you stop, nothing’s ever quite the same.