'It is not surprising that with the makers' knowledge of racing...

it should be capable of giving as high a speed as 80mph.

What comes as a revelation is the ease with which on Brooklands that speed is reached and held.

The rev needle hovering between the 5,000 and 5,500 marks, the whole mechanism feeling as one, and with no sense of adventure attached to such speeds.' – 'The Autocar' on the N-type Magnette.

Small-capacity six-cylinder cars were much in vogue in the early 1930s and MG had duly climbed aboard the bandwagon in 1931 with launch of the Magna 'F'.

Maximum output of the Magna's 1,271cc Wolseley Hornet-based overhead-camshaft engine was later raised from a modest 37bhp to a much healthier 47 horsepower.

An extensively revised and improved version of this 'KD' engine, tuned to produce 56bhp, was carried over to the 'NA' Magnette of 1934; the chassis too had come in for revision, being lighter than hitherto.

Owned in its early days by Bellevue Garage Ltd of Wandsworth, t...