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F0355
South Africa
298 Posts |
 Posted - 01/01/2015 : 16:22:35
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Interesting read - all text anomalies as found & copied from the article.
Here's the link to the MotorSport archive article: http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/february-1978/54/special-mg
MotorSport February 1978
A Special MG
A Special MG J. H. T. Smith's K3 Magnette
THE K3 MG Magnette burst upon the sporting world in 1933 with an impressive debut; the first prototype took part in the Monte Carlo Rally and made fastest time in the Mont des Mules hill-climb, which formed part of the event. A second prototype went on a prolonged test and reconnaissance run in Italy, in preparation for the Mille Miglia, and the first three production cars competed in the 1,000 miles race. They finished first and second in the t, too-c.c class, with the third car retiring with engine trouble. The K3 was 8 six-cylinder of 57 x 7 MM. bore and stroke, giving a capacity of ,o86 c.c. with a single overhead camshaft, a supercharger mounted ahead of the radiator, and the power was transmitted through an ENV pre-selector gearbox. After the success of the cars in the Milk Miglia, where they had trounced the 1,3oo-c.c. Maserati opposition, there were plenty of customers for these sports/racing cars, which could also be used as pure racing cars thanks to all the road equipment such as lamps, mudguards, screens, etc., being easily detachable. In road-racing, track-racing, record-breaking, hill-climbs and any other form of competition the K3 was very successful, while some were even sold for touring purposes. During 1933 8 total of 14 production K3 cars Were built and in 1934 the first three off the line were earmarked for Lord Howe's Mille Miglia team again. These were numbers ,5, 16 and 17 and it is the first of these with which we are directly concerned. 1(3015 was registered in February 1934 by the MG Car Co. Ltd. of Abingdon, Berkshire, and given the registration number JB 3180. It was the standard sports/racing two-seater with squared-off body behind the scats, a full width "slab" petrol tank and spare wheel on the back. It was driven by Count Lurani and Clifton Penn-Hughes and they finished tenth overall and second in the 1,10o-c.c. class, a long way behind the class-winning Maserati; thus the Italians overcame their defeat of 1933. After the race JB 31130 was returned to the Abingdon factory and as the K3 was now standardised with a pointed-tail two-seater body, it was rcbodied into this form and all the road equipment was removed as it was destined to become a pure racing car. The Mille Miglia had been held on April 8th and when the car re-appeared on May 21St at the Whit-Monday Brooklands meeting it was in its new guise and had a cowl over the traditional MG radiator. It was loaned to Major "Goldie" Gardner, who was making a return to racing after a bad crash in the Ulster TT of 1932, in which he had been driving an MG Midget. In view of his leg and hip injuries, Gardner was restricting his racing to the Brooklands Outer Circuit, which was a flat-out blind round the banked track. He took part in two races with K 3015 but was unplaced. However, the potential of the K3 Magnetic was shown by R. T. Horton with a similar car, though better streamlined, who set aClass G lap record at 123.58 m.p.h. at this meeting. At the Brooklands August Bank Holiday meeting Gardner again drove K3015 and gained a third place in the Esher Senior Short Handicap on the Outer Circuit, and the following month he took part in the BRDC 5oo-Mile race at Brooklands. For this event he was joined by Dr. Benjaficld and they gained a very worthwhile third place. In his autobiography entitled "Magic MPH" Major Gardner says" For the BRDC zoo-Mile race at Brooklands in 1934 Kim (Cecil Kimber of thc MG Company) lent me a standard K3 supercharged two-seater Magnetic " Around this time one John Henry lomson Smith, who was in partnership with Martin Soames in a motor business in London, was looking for something to replace his MG Midget. In passing, this MG Midget was the one which had won the 1931 Ulster Tr driven by Norman Black, which Smith was using as an everyday sports car. He had it tuned by W. E Wilkinson of the Bellevue Garage in South London and asked "Wilkie" to keep an eye open bra K3 MG suitable for racing. At the end of the season "Wilkie" took JILT. down to Brooklands as he had found him a good 1(3. It was K3o3 5 which arrived from Abingdon in the MG works van, in racing trim with space for a passenger but no seat cushions, and "Wilkie" took Smith sit ting on the floor for ten laps and pronounced the car "a good 'un", so J.H.T. agreed to buy it. It was a good one, for at the final BARC meeting of the season Gardner had gained third place in the First Kingston Senior Long Handicap and had won the Second Kingston Senior Long Handicap, at an average speed of 104.58 m.p.h. Smith took delivery of the car in racing trim, and was given the log-book which contained the information Registration number JB 3180, chassis number K3o15, engine number t 7oK and the MG Car Company Ltd. as the only previous owner. As Smith bought it purely for racing, with no intention of using it on the public roads, he never taxed the car or changed the ownership, so to this day the log-book contains but one entry, that of the MG Car Company Ltd., Abingdon. During 1935 Smith raced the car "as bought" and as it was his first supercharged racing car he
and as it was his first supercharged racing car he let "Wilkie" look after it for him. He was only interested in road racing, the fiat-out stuff on the Brooklands Outer Circuit not appealing to him, and competed at Donington Park and on the triangular "Mountain" course at Brooklands. By the end of the season he had learnt a lot about the car and had gained a third place at a Donington Park meeting and a second at the closing Brooklands meeting. At the July Donington Park meeting MOTOR SPORT said in its report that Smith lay third for a while in a 25-mile Handicap event, " ... until he was passed by Esplen (MG). ... " A photograph accompanying this article now shows why Smith was passed by Esplen he spun! For the 1936 season K3o t 5 underwent a "face-lift" at the Tomson Smith & Soames workshops, which was more in the nature of a "face-drop", for the standard K3 bodywork was lowered 41 inches, as was the radiator and cowl. The standard K3 fuel tank, with its twin fillers, was discarded and a new one made, which was in alloy and had a central filler, but still followed the lines of the standard K3, with the tail ending in a point. "Wilkie" attended to the engine as always, and the season started with K3105 being lighter and lower than the normal road-racing K3. Smith now took part in the longer races, like the Nuffield Trophy over 59 laps of Dortington Park, in which he finished seventh, and the International Trophy at Brooklands as well as the regular short races. At the postponed (because of rain!) Easter meeting at Brooklands, Smith won the Third Heat of the British Mountain Circuit Championship at 70.67 m.p.h., and at the Whit.-Monday meeting he lent the car to "Wilkie" who won the Fifth Mountain Handicap at 71.15 mph, The car had proved really satisfactory throughout the 1936 season and in the autumn Smith and Soames reviewed the situation, By this time the ERA was a very desirable racing car, and there were some intriguing i,100-c.c. Mascratis about the place. The ERA was an expensive proposition and the Mascrati would be all right until it blew up, when spares from Italy would stretch the budget. The two young men looked at K3o15, reluctant to part with it for it had served well, and decided they would convert it into a proper single-seater, with central driving seat. By this time the MG Company had officially given up racing and were not building or servicing any racing cars, but the enthusiasm of the management was undiminished. Smith and Spastics went to see Kimber, Enever and Jackson, the leading lights of the firm, and outlined their plans for the single-seater. They received a lot of unofficial support and came away with a brand new chassis frame, a new block and crankshaft, a new front axle beam and a bronze cylinder head all for "a token sum". With this support all thoughts of an ERA or a Maserati were banished and the winter of 1936/37 saw them hard at work. The complete body, tank, radiator and cowl were removed from K3o r5 and sold to another MG owner and the new chassis frame was put up on trestles alongside the existing chassis. The engine was given to "Wilkie" for its winter overhaul, and all the bits were removed from 1(3015 and fitted to the new chassis frame, and wherever possible bits were lightened. The 1(3 front-axle beam was one of the weak parts of the car, which was why Smith took the opportunity to get a new one, as thcoriginal one had done a lot of work. Springs, gearbox, rear axle, steering, brakes, shock-absorbers and so on were all transferred and the stripped chassis was stood up against the wall when it was all finished, along with sundry other bits and bobs that had been
replaced. The rebuilt engine, with its new cylinder block, crankshaft and bronze head had been fitted with a Zoller supercharger in place of the original Roots-Marshall supercharger, and when everything was installed and a new bulkhead made, the original specification plate from K 3015 was attached to this new car. The long steering column had been pivoted across to the left to give a central steering wheel position, though the wheel sat at an angle; a new fuel tank and seat were made and then the whole thing was encased in it new aluminium body, with a pointed tail and fully yowled radiator. Although on the face of it, Smith had rebuilt 1(3015 into a single-seater, he had in fact built almost an entirely new car. What might be termed K3o15 Mark 11. Smith's interests really lay in proper road-racing, and he used to go to events like the Swiss OP or the French GP to spectate on his summer holidays. The nearest thing to European road racing in England was Donington Park, and in 1937 the Crystal Palace road circuit was opened, but none of this quite compared with racing on public roads, so for his first event for 1937 with the rebuilt K to t5 Smith went to Ireland for the Cork GP. Not surprisingly the rebuild was not finished when the time for departure arrived, so the car was shipped with the new body just resting on the chassis and the at
tachments were made up in Ireland. Everything went well and Smith finished fourth at 71.88 m.p.h. At Brooklands the Campbell Circuit had been opened, which was part road-circuit and part banked track, and in the International Trophy the Zoller blower on the MG gave trouble. In this race Billy Cotton and "Wilkie" were driving MG Magnette 1(3004, which the Dance Band Leader had bought from Jock Manby-Colegrave and to which "Wilkie" had fitted the lowered body and alloy fuel tank that Smith had sold when he embarked on his single-seater project. While he and his partner Soames were ruefully removing bronze supercharger-rotor bits from the inlet manifold of the single-seater, they watched their old 1936 bodywork being driven into third place!
At the end a the season Smith took part in the Imperial Trophy meeting at Crystal Palace and finished eighth, while Soames netted a second place in the First Campbell Circuit Handicap event at the BARC October meeting at Brooklands. As the single-seater project had proved satisfactory the car was retained for the 1938 season, thc winter rebuild being more an overhaul than anything else, though the Zoller supercharger was discarded and the original Marshall was replaced. While JUT. was in Ireland he met up with
A. P. MacArthur who raced a K3 MG, and this car was prepared by W. E. Wilkinson. When MacArthur was in England, taking the car to "Wilkie" for its winter overhaul, he called on Smith to ask if he wanted to sell the single-seater. Smith didn't want to sell it, but he did sell MacArthur the old original chassis frame from K30 i5 and various surplus spare parts and they were shipped back to Ireland, but without any actual identification, for the documents of JB 318o/K3o15 remained with the single-seater. The 1938 season was a good one for the single-seater, for after a third place at the Easter Brooklands Meeting, in a Campbell Circuit Handicap, it ran fourth in its Heat at the Crystal Palace Coronation Trophy meeting, and ninth in the Final. In the JCC International Trophy at Brooklands it netted a good fourth place overall at 78.96 m.p.h., finishing in a cloud of steam as the radiator had split a few laps from the end and Smith drove with his fingers crossed and a rapidly rising engine temperature. It was part of "Uncle Willy" Parnell's team, along with W. G. Everitt driving Reg Parnell's special K3 MG and Percy Maclure's Riley, which won the race. With ist, 4th and t3th places they won the Team Prize. Two weeks later, on May 2 tst, at a mixed car
and motorcycle event at Crystal Palace, Smith led the Sydenham Trophy race for cars, from start to finish, the 1,too-c.c. having a start over the 1,50o-c.c. cars, and in the 15 laps B. Bira was unable to catch the MG with his ERA. The single-seater MG Special ran at all the Crystal Palace meetings that year and at all the Brooklands meetings, including the JCC
zoo-Mile race, where it finished toth, and it established a Class G (1,100 c.c.) lap record for the Campbell Circuit at 70.60 m.p.h. During the season Reg Parnell had modified his K3 MG by fitting the independent front suspension assembly from a I.ancia Augusta in place of the normal half-elliptic leaf springs and forged beam axle. The axle beam he removed was not a standard MG one, but a special one-off he had made the previous year to replace the rather flimsy MG one. Seeing Parnell's car with its i.f.s. layout Smith enquired about the special axle beam and soon did a deal with Reg and had the extra strong beam on his own car. At the Crystal Palace Cup meeting in August the 1,too-c.c. class saw a scrap between three special MG K3 cars that had started life as production models. Aubrey Cuddon-Fletcher was driving Parnell's special single-seater with the Lancia Smith was driving his single-seater with the specially made front axle beam off Parnell's car, and Stuart-Wilton was driving the ex-Billy Cotton car that carried the modified original
bodywork of Smith's car! When the season was over and J.H.T. was contemplating his next rebuild of K3o15 Mark II, MacArthur called in again, once more trying to buy the car. It was still not for sale, but Smith sold him the complete bodywork, as he had new ideas for his own car. Once more MacArthur returned to Ireland, this time with the body off Smith's car, but not the one that had been born with the original chassis. During the winter of 1938/39 Smith's car underwent its third major rebuild. One of the short-comings of making a K3 MG into a single-seater was that it became nose-heavy or, conversely, "tail-light", so in this rebuild the engine was moved back in the chassis, the prop-shaft being shortened, and the supercharger was moved from its standard position in front of the radiator to a new position behind the radiator. It was attached to the front of the cylinder block and driven by a chain enclosed in a special casing. With the ever in
creasing power of the engine it was becoming difficult to keep head gaskets intact and the weak points were the water passages between head and block. A new joint was made with no water passages at all, and the water was transferred from block to head by external pipes. (In the 1960s Ford used this dodge to cure trouble on the (iT40 and it was known as "dry-deck" in 1938 it did not have a name!) Another limitation on the K3 Special were the brakes, which were still 1934 standard cable-operated ones. Smith's tuning shop was looking after various customers' competition cars, including a Type 37A Bugatti which Soames raced, belonging to one Cleveland-Harmer. One day, quite by chance, Smith had been to see Harmer and on his way home called in at the White Mouse Garage in Hammersmith where Stan Holgate was working on Prince Chula's cars. He saw some new brakes for the ex-Seaman Delage which Chula
was trying to run. There was an enormous pile of new drums, back-plates, shoes, etc., for these large-diameter hydraulic brakes, for someone had made an error in ordering and they had far too many. While J.H.T. was eyeing these, Prince Chula arrived and when Smith left he had a nice set of new brakes in the back of his car, bought for a very reasonable price. These were grafted onto the MG hubs and all the mechanical linkage of the old MG brakes was replaced by hydraulic lines. During 1938 Smith had raced against a very pretty little I ,too-c.c. Maserati owned by Count Lurani, and had been really smitten by its lines, so when it came to clothe the third generation of K3o15, with its Parnell axle, Chula brakes, re-positioned and modified engine and new supercharger drive and mounting, a copy of the 1,1oo-c.c. Maserati was made and it was painted red, as had been the previous body. Other work done during the 1938/39 rebuild included light alloy shockabsorbers, new leaf springs with forged clips, and a lower mounting of the rear axle, on alloy blocks instead of the MG malleable iron ones. This major rebuild took longer than planned and the car was not ready for the first meetings at Brooklands, but it appeared at the Crystal Palace at the end of May, and contemporary reports merely described it as "... J. H. T Smith's rebodied MG ... ". The 1939 season was cut short by the war so Smith's Mark III Special
Peter Steyn
Johannesburg, RSA
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