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"The prototype caused a tremendous impression at the Motor Show, and Kimber told me that he had taken 250 orders for the Midget, which caused him heartache as he was trying to sell the idea of a luxury sports car to Billy Morris and the press! Anyway, the Midget went into production and more and more effort went into that car, as we were selling five or seven of those to every 18/80. I can't say that l was ever enthusiastic about the 18/80 which was really old-fashioned, but the Midget was a different story: it was “sassy", smart and above all, cheap. The sort of price which with a bit of saving, I could have afforded.

"The Midget had proved a success, and early in 1929 Cous, Frankie Tayler and l were to take three cars to Brooklands and run them in a High-Speed Trial organized by the MCC, with "named" drivers, of course, we three as riding mechanics. This was largely CK's idea, inspired by Harold Parker of the Shell Company, to show the cars could stand up to one hour at maximum speed. I think we all three did sixty miles in the hour, which made good advertising copy at a time when neither the Morris Minor nor the Austin Seven could do much over forty in standard tune.

"HN got me to have a look at the engine of one of the original press cars, and when I checked the valve timing, I found there was no overlap at TDC, which I knew wasn't much cop, and I asked Wolseley Motors to send me an unground camshaft over. HN did some calculations, and I worked on grinding the blank on the workshop lathe, and had it hardened at Birmingham, to a different profile which gave us a little overlap, and the car went much better! We could get it up to around 73mph, but it was running weak, so I said we then needed a bit of polish and port alignment carried out. I did all this myself, and the result was a Midget which would just nudge eighty, and we knew we were on to something good. This car was called "Shinio" by the lads because of all the elbow grease I had used on the internals. I had balanced the bottom end up, equalized the combustion chambers, lined up the manifolds and so forth, and fitted a larger carburettor, and it really did scurry along then. The camshaft was put into production, production examples being ground on a proper machine, but I think that was a bit later, as they had to be slipped in between batches of Minor cams.

"We were by then moving the Factory to Abingdon, and the Essex "market gardeners" got onto Kimber for a team of Midgets to run in the Double-Twelve Race at Brooklands. We prepared half a dozen cars for that, and won the Team Prize, while CK's "baby"' the Tigress, blew up. After that it was Midgets all the way, and the 18/80 died off.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sources: MG by McComb and Wikipedia
** HN refers to H.N. Charles, the early MG Senior Designer and a good friend of Cecil Kimber.

~~ ~~ Reinout Vogt