1926 MG 14/28 Super Sports - This is a faithful and desirable refurbishment of a 1926 MG ‘Super Sports’ and includes a rare and period LAP overhead valve cylinder head conversion. Built on an original 14/28 chassis - complete with its original registration number - carefully researched by the well-known motoring historian vendor over a period of 36 years from 1989 after the chassis was first discovered in a dilapidated condition in a woodyard near Mere in Wiltshire...see photos – This vehicle has also featured in The Automobile magazine for June 1018
FABULOUS - please enquire
A potted history of the model and detail about this car we are offering for sale:-
Among the many modifications required to transform an 14/28 Morris Oxford into an MG; the rake of the steering column was lowered and the steering box repositioned, moving it from its mounting on the side of the cylinder block to a bracket mounted to the chassis. A longer drop arm was fitted to improve the steering and a three spoke steering wheel replaced the Morris’s four spoke wheel. Seven leaf springs were flattened to lower the ride height and the brake rods re-rooted to pass beneath the rear axle which had a higher ratio crown wheel and pinion. Hartford friction dampers replaced the single action Gabriel snubbers. The battery & toolbox were relocated from the running boards to under the front seats. Modifications were made to the engine to obtain maximum RPM and the three speed gearbox was retained but the gear lever angle was altered for greater rake to suit the 14/28s sporting air and laid-back driving position.
The 1925 model 14/28 gained a larger radiator, four wheel rod operated 12 inch brakes and a 6 inch longer chassis. The upper part of its body was now painted steel, only the bottom half remained in polished aluminium alloy. Painting the car in two different colours above and below the waist line reduced its apparent height by several inches.
The radiator badge featured a Morris Oxford badge encircled by a Cambridge blue garter bearing the words ‘The MG Super Sports’.
In 1926 the 14/28 body became 2 inches wider and open hub wire wheels replaced the Ace disc covered artillery type. In May 1925 The Autocar tested MG‘s demonstrator tourer, describing it as “A sports model with unusually attractive lines and well balanced appearance”. The magazine’s verdict summarised that the car ‘had a higher turn of speed than most drivers would care to use and a very lively performance with little ostentation’. The Bullnose 14/28 MG stayed in production until late 1926, when the model followed its Morris sister and adopted a flat radiator. The company had now become ‘The MG Car Company (proprietors The Morris Garages Limited)’.
The bones of this 14/28 offered today were discovered languishing amongst the stinging nettles in a woodyard in Mere on the Wiltshire Somerset border. The chassis and drive train were neglected but complete, but any body work present was beyond saving. This car was purchased new from “Skurrays of Swindon” in 1926 by Mr Humphrey Cotterell. He was a horse breeder and jockey, and purchased the car with his winnings from a race at Ascot. Cotterell used the car extensively until 1930, after which as was often the case in the 1930s, it frequently changed hands. Its original registration & logbook reveals that the vehicle moved to Great Blakenham in Suffolk on 6th October 1930, where it stayed until 28th April 1933, before moving to London W9. It then changed hands again on 19th July 1933, moving to Brighton, where the last entry was a change of address in Brighton on 10th April 1934.
The car offered today has an in-period LAP overhead valve conversion fitted, available at the time for anyone seeking bottom end torque, as opposed to speed. Indeed, there is hardly a hill that it is not possible to climb in top gear. Lago Automotive Products were based in London NW1, the company started by Anthony Lago. In The Autocar of 3 September 1926 a full page LAP advertisement targeted Morris and MG 14/28 owners – claiming: enormously improved acceleration, great speed on hills, more hill climbing in top gear, far less gear changing, cooler running, higher speed and reduced petrol consumption owing to better shaped combustion space afforded by overhead valves. The price? Yours, sir, for a mere £24, the price of a small motorcycle in 1926.
In 1989 it would have been so easy to fit a ‘boy racer special’ body. Instead, detailed drawings were created so that the four-seat coachwork and firewall could be fabricated to the exact specifications of an original body. The body was created in ash and the panel work fabricated by Pitney in Wokingham. In consequence, today the coachwork is tight, the doors shut well and the hood frame fits exactly as it should. The three-piece windscreen has been made to exact specifications using some original components. The lower side panels should, in keeping with 1926 MG practice, have been polished aluminium, b
