Thank Frankel it’s Friday: What’s the best pre‑war MG?

But if you like cars, there’ll certainly be plenty on which to feed your eyes. Over 2,000 pre-1969 classics were used if you believe one apparently quite authoritative website I saw. And it’s not all Americana either: there’s a Porsche 911 in there and a Karmann Ghia too. Though for some reason, I only had eyes for the MG TD in which Tarantino placed the actors playing Roman Polanski and his fated bride Sharon Tate. So much so that I briefly lost track of what was going on in the film itself. Which, most of the time, wasn’t much.

It’s not as if I’m I particularly big fan of the TD, but it did get me thinking about those T-type MGs and the P-types that preceded them. To me they conjure an image of an idealised England, of leafy lanes, pints in pubs, village green cricket and RAF officers with pretty girls by their side. But which was the best?

To me the TD and TF lost something in the visual department and while I know beauty to be in the eye of the beholder and it shouldn’t matter very much when you’re driving, when it comes to these MGs, it does. There’s a certain, upright and traditional look that says MG to me every bit as much as that of an MGA or MGB, and that look was there from the PA through to the TC. But thereafter it was somewhat lost.

I’ve only driven one TC but I loved it. Clearly as the quickest of T-types up until that time but retaining the original appearance, I’d understand anyone who argued that it was the one to have from them all. And while I’ve not driven a TB, I’d certainly not argue in favour of the TA. My father used to have one and to me it was a car that lacked the performance of the later T-types and the charm of the P-types it ostensibly replaced.

But the earlier PB was a different matter. That car was a joy. I can remember thinking there probably wasn’t a car in the world with a less enviable noise to progress ratio, and thinking too that it didn’t matter a damn. Howling along at 40mph, flicking around the ratios in that exquisite backwards gearbox, feeling how precisely it followed the road and eagerly it chose to be chucked into corners… to me it was and remains the epitome of what a not completely unaffordable pre-war sports car should be.

But it’s not the best, at least of those that I’ve driven. At least not quite. The most fun I’ve ever had in any MG was in something called a Cream Cracker. The Crackers were a series of P and T-type based trials cars, created by the works in tiny numbers. The 1935 PB-based Cracker I’ve had the pleasure to drive and race is one of just three such machines. And with a Roots-type blower, it gives the PB the performance to go with the noise, and the power to slide it about all over the place.

You simply wouldn’t believe this much fun could be had with less than a litre of engine under your bonnet. No, it’s not particularly rapid even by pre-war standards – you’d not see which way a well driven Aston Martin Ulster of the same era went – but that hardly matters, nor does the fact that 6ft 3in of me looks entirely ridiculous in the diminutive Cracker. There’s nothing with an octagon on its nose I’ve enjoyed driving more.

Nothing? It is possible some of you may recall I’ve also been lucky enough to race the very first K3 Magnette, the car used by Earl Howe to help MG win the team prize on the Mille Miglia. Surely the Cracker can’t compare to that?

In theory the answer is no. The K3 with its six-cylinder motor and getting on for double the power is in a different league in terms of performance, quick enough to duff up six-cylinder Alfas and blown Bentleys. But in place of that gorgeous gearbox, K3s have a pre-selector transmission which not only removes all the fun of changing gear, but which is also completely counter-intuitive to me. Give me a car with a backwards gearbox with no synchro and pedals around the wrong way and I’ll be absolutely fine. Give me one that requires you to change gear when you don’t need to change gear, including selecting from third from fourth while travelling at top speed, well my brain just doesn’t want to do it.

In short the K3 and I have unfinished business and I look forward to renewing our acquaintance next season. Until then and at least so far as Abingdon output is concerned, the Cracker’s the car for me.