Those MG Musketeer Magnettes

Sir,

I was most interested to read your article about Ashley Cleave’s Morris. However, you are not quite accurate when you state that the Musketeer Magnettes were, “virtually P type Midgets with overbored and supercharged N type Magnette power units”.

The Musketeers you mention (as against the first team which were the 1934 NE type TT cars fitted with K2 bodies) were in fact closer to the L-type Magna, as they consisted of an ‘L’ chassis, an ‘N’ front axle (3 ft. 9 ins. track as against 3 ft. 6in. standard; they were therefore crab-tracked), a ‘P” body panelled in aluminium, and, as you correctly state an overbored (from 1,271 c.c. to 1,408 c.c.) and blown (at 18 p.s.i.)’N’ engine which, apart from a longer stroke and several detail differences such as clutch and carburation, in standard form was basically very similar to the 57 x 71 mm. 1,086 c.c. ‘L’ engine.

Those machines must have been quite fearsome as they had more power than the contemporary K3 Magnette in a lot less chassis weight.

The later Cream Crackers and Musketeers you mention were indeed the cruder ‘T’ types, but the ‘T’ Crackers were unblown, only the Musketeers having this treatment The first and proper Crackers were of course the PA and PB types, while MG’s still made cars with their camshafts in the right place.

Incidentally, and on a different note, where I live, in Prestwich, North Manchester there is a quiet road, effectively a dead-end, called Philips Park Road, named after the Philips family who were once wealthy landowners in the district. Their family home, before it was demolished a few years ago, stood near this road, and an old friend of our family once told me that as he used to pass this site several years ago, going to work, he often noticed the remains of what was reputedly a Humber car, Once owned by the Philips family in the early years of the century, which was just rotting away in the grounds. I was in my early teens at the time (mid-1960s), but I rushed off at once and eagerly searched the area, alas, finding nothing. I often wonder whether this car was ever discovered and rebuilt or whether it might have been sent for scrap whets the house was demolished. Perhaps one of your readers might know if the story has a happy ending.

In conclusion may I say that I consider Motor Sport to be as great an institution as Brooklands!

Prestwich Maurice Gleeson.