Hardback, 270 x 210mm, 296 pages, 800 illustrations
ISBN: 9781859606148 Haynes Publishing
Haynes web price: £19.99
There are almost as many books devoted to MG as for Ferrari, Porsche and Jaguar: sorting out what's worth your time and money is tricky.
I was in the same publishing stable as Wilson McComb for a time time and his MG books seemed to be the benchmarks during 1980s to 90s. Sadly I did not absorb enough information to retain much over the years. I decided on a refresher on the competition side as my move to the west brought much more contact with MG Owners and specialists.
The book divides into pre- and post-war, with former BMC competition manager Peter Browning's accounts of the 1940s to their last (March 1969) Sebring appearance, marking the brutal closure of the Abingdon competition department. All just as excellent as expected, for Browning's knowledgeable writing on works Minis and Austin Healeys is benchmark stuff, and I use the obsolete Healey book (amazing technical detail from Les Needham) to support most of my Sprite work.
Works MGs is particularly enlivened by first hand tales from key factory figures and biogs from drivers and team staff.
I had hoped to learn a lot more about the pre-war heroes and their underrated small capacity winners, but left those pages pretty confused about which model was which. Mike Allison is obviously an expert, but assumes a period insider knowledge that leads to so many abbreviations that I still don't understand the main models and their key characteristics, although the technical appendices do answer such queries.
The other problem with the pre-war section for me is that it is written in the hallowed and bloated pre-war style where many words made more money and took their time to get to the point.
Overall, worth adding to your bookshelf with outstanding appendices covering personalities, technical and competition results.
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