General Manager of Oxford-based Morris Garages, Cecil Kimber brought sports car motoring within the financial reach of the man in the street with a succession of affordable MGs.

These were, naturally enough, based on existing Morris models, arguably the most famous and certainly the most influential being the Midget, which first appeared at the 1928 London Motor Show.

The first – M-Type – Midget was based on modified Morris Minor running gear and used the latter’s 847cc single-overhead-camshaft four-cylinder engine, though it was its delightful two-seater body that set the little MG apart from its humbler progenitor.

Broadly similar to the D-Type Midget of 1931 and introduced at the same was the six-cylinder F-Type Magna which, like its equally new four-cylinder stablemate, used a development of the under-slung chassis first seen on the racing C-Type Midget but of longer wheelbase.

Wolseley, also owned by William Morris, had been responsible for the Minor engine, and it was this un...