Topic

this is Old Number 1

Correct

Cecil Kimber had it built for he 1925 Lands End Trial, based on a Morris Bull nosed Chasis

Correct on Lands end trial, however not totally on the chasis

11.9 hp from a special overhead valve Hotchkiss with a capacity of 1548cc.

Incorrect on bhp ..
Top speed ??

I'd take a guess at around £250,000, Cecil Kimber bought it after wining a Gold meal at the Trial for £300, but an MG Car Company employee bought from a barn in Manchester for £15 in 1932

Correct guess at £250,000. incorrect on Kimber buying it, see your first answer !
Incorrect on being found in a barn, allegedly..

It was the start of MG as we know it today.

Correct, but it was also the first car to ? In relation to the MG brand

Old Number 1
Cecil Kimber for 1925 Lands End Trial
25 bhp and 80mph top speed
£250k
First to be built specifically for sporting events

Old Number 1

Whiz wrote: wrote:

Old Number 1
Cecil Kimber for 1925 Lands End Trial
25 bhp and 80mph top speed
£250k
First to be built specifically for sporting events

Old Number 1

1 correct
2 correct
3 incorrect
4 correct
5 incorrect

Softly~Softly wrote: wrote:

Whiz wrote: wrote:

Old Number 1
Cecil Kimber for 1925 Lands End Trial
25 bhp and 80mph top speed
£250k
First to be built specifically for sporting events

Old Number 1

1 correct
2 correct
3 incorrect - BHP: Approximately 25, Maximum speed: 129 km/h (80mph) - Although the website you found it on says 38BHP and 70mph
4 correct
5 incorrect - Started fun

Just number 5 to find then

From the MGOC website
. Cecil Kimber had the car specially built to compete in the trial and this was indeed based on a bullnose Morris Cowley chassis.

Top speed 80mph
0-60 -20 secs.
BHP was in fact 25 bhp from the 11.9hp engine.

Soon after the trial it was sold to a FRIEND of cecil Kimber for £300, not to Kimber himself.
It was found in a Scrap yard in Manchester not a Barn.

5) It was the first sports car from the Morris Garages company before it became officially MG and was the first car to ave the MG Octagonal badge...

Not bad though, some of the info from researching non this quiz has stayed in the bonce rather than drifting out with everything else.


Gary

Gadget2466 wrote: wrote:

the first car to ave the MG Octagonal badge...

IF this isnt the answer then ive no idea lol

the first sports car ever to wear the MG badge correct ..

This is the first MG sports car: it has skinny tyres, no power and hopeless brakes - but is it still a great car? There was only one way for Mark Gillies to find out

It is not every day that you drive something which is so much a part of a car maker's history that it is effectively priceless - but that is what I am doing at the wheel of Old Number One, the first sports car ever to wear the MG badge. Auctioneers and MG experts shy away from giving it a definitive value - with what could it be compared? - but we would be talking about 250,000 if it ever came to auction.

But let us put value out of our minds, because that is not what this spindly 70-year-old sports car is about. Instead it speaks eloquently of what MGs have always been built on: speed and fun. Despite being an assemblage of Morris components, Old Number One has a verve that belies its humble underpinnings.

It was sprightly in its day, having a top speed of around 70mph when the most flamboyant of sports cars could barely top 100mph. Today, it feels slower than the most stately of shopping cars. Yet it is fun to drive, because MG's founder Cecil Kimber knew about the basics of a good sports car.

For a start, its skimpy bodywork gives it a racy appeal. Its major controls respond well, with the steering and throttle pedals having particularly pleasing actions. And it makes a lovely throaty rasp under acceleration and a staccato backfire when you lift off the throttle. Built by Kimber for hillclimb trials, the MG is a joy to throw around, its anorexic Dunlop Cord tyres able to cope with the (lack of) power in the dry, but sliding delightfully on wet and muddy roads.

You feel a part of this machine. You hear every component in action, feel the blast of icy air over the scuttle, and even pop gently out of your seat in sympathy with the car when it skips over bumps. Where in modern cars you are insulated from the machinery, here you have to be attuned to it. The clutch cannot be slipped and the gearlever cannot be hurried, otherwise the cogs grate in protest: you need to let the engine revs die while changing up and speed them up while downshifting to effect quiet changes.

The brake pedal acts only on the front wheels, while the outside lever actuates the rear brakes. Stabbing the pedal has about as much effect as trying to blow a house down, so in emergencies you also reach for the outside lever. You cannot say that it is comfortable, either. There is no weather protection not even a windscreen. The only source of warmth is the heat of the engine wafting back into the cockpit, so it pays to wrap up.

While modern-car drivers would find Old Number One lacking in creature comforts, they would also be confused by the dials and controls. In the 1920s, a good driver was constantly alert to the machine, so this car has attractive silver-faced Smiths dials to monitor fuel and oil pressure, engine revs, road speed and the condition of the electrical system. The water temperature gauge is a glorified thermometer ("The Boyce Motometer") set on the radiator cap.

Other controls in the cabin include a fuel pressure pump, a lever for ignition advance and retard, and a fuel mixture dial, vital for starting in cold weather. Ah yes, starting. This is a bit of a palaver.

If MGs are all about having fun, then that fun started here, 70 years ago

Flick on the ignition and fuel pump (now a modern electric device, added for convenience), retard the ignition, check that the gearlever is in neutral - it would be embarrassing to run yourself over as you stand by the prow in cranking position - open the bonnet, flood the carburettor by pulling its top, turn the starting handle and hope that the engine fires. All of this would have been standard procedure in 1925 when Kimber helped to bring the MG (Morris Garages) name to the public's attention with a faultless performance in the Land's End Trial, a premier sporting event. Organised by the Motor Cycling Club, this test of performance and durability started in Slough and finished at Land's End.

Kimber produced this car specially for the event: although Morris Garages built several cars before 1925, FC 7900 or Old Number One is regarded by Rover and the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust as the first MG sports car. It had a bespoke chassis frame into which was fitted an overhead valve Hotchkiss 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine giving about 38bhp. Morris axles and brakes were used, special springs made, and racy Hartford friction dampers fitted at the rear. Carbodies of Coventry built the two-seater bodywork, which has sketchy mudguards and hopeless lighting: two small lamps mounted above the twin spare wheels and a single glow-worm at the back.

After Kimber had finished with it, he sold it to a friend in Lancashire. It returned to MG in the early 1930s after allegedly being found on a scrapheap in Manchester, and has been in the care of MG's owners ever since. In that it proved Kimber's genius for taking unlikely components from the parts bin and then assembling them into lively, good looking sports cars, it is the beginning of the MG legend. If MGs are all about having fun, then that fun started here, 70 years ago.

Originally published in the Electronic Telegraph. The Electronic Telegraph is a Registered Service Mark of The Telegraph plc

So I think that goes to gadget, and that is me finished with the quiz for at least another 6 months, my head is hurting

Thanks for that SS # 6 months you say .... could we have a little more detail next time

OK Gary where is the MG T-Bar Quiz going to take us next .... no more dogs please

As some may knowI love the old MG's as well at he modern ones,

So get trawling the internet and tell me what this car is _the name needs to be specific as it looks like a couple of models coudl be the right name.

and How much it sold for in US $

It's an NB Airline Coupe, and sold for €166,435 which is approx 206,670 USD

Well done identifying the 1935 MG NB Magnette Airline Coupe. In 2007 the car was sold for almost US$ 400,000

Click here to see details

MG mad it's over to you