CarBrandLogos archive · MG · 1929

MGMG M-type

The cheap little sports car that turned a Morris tuner into a marque.

Photo: DeFacto · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in MG history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the MG M-type, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Cecil Kimber had been dressing up Morris chassis for years, but the M-type is where MG became a manufacturer in its own right. Introduced in 1929 on the Morris Minor chassis, it took the overhead-cam small four, wrapped it in a fabric-covered boat-tail body barely wider than the driver, and sold it for less than most people believed a sports car could cost.

1930MG-M-Type · Liftarn · Public domain

Design and engineering

It was tiny and not especially fast, but it was light, it revved, and it could be raced by anyone with a garage. Owners took M-types trialling and sprinting, and works cars ran in the Brooklands Double Twelve. That cheap-and-willing recipe defined MG for the next thirty years and gave the company the Midget name it used for decades.

In production

Production moved from Cowley to Abingdon in 1930, the address that would build MGs until 1980. The M-type ran to 1932 and handed over to the J-type, by which time the formula was fixed.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1929–1932

Body

2-door Roadster

Technical specification

The MG M-type, in detail.

Production: 1929–1932
Class: Sports car
Body style: 2-door Roadster; Coupe
Assembly: United Kingdom: Cowley, Oxford, England (1929–1930); United Kingdom: Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England (1930–1932)
Manufacturer: MG

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