MG Car Club of South Australia
1932 MG Le Mans toVictor Harbor by.. Bob Schapel
W a y n e Hough’ s magnificent photo of the 1932 MG on the cover of last month’ s magazine, grabbed my attention. The photo gave me a few clues, but a bit of research confirmed that it was the car once owned by my father, Lou, about 75 years ago. This car won its class at Le Mans! I remember Lou’ s stories and have read about its early history in John Thornley’ s book,“ MAINTAINING THE BREED”. The car started life as a C-Type in 1932, having chassis number C0291. As such, it was designed for oval track racing, such as Montlhery and Brooklands, where brakes and gears were little used. In fact“ Montlhery Midget” was Thornley’ s title for his chapter on C- Types. The car originally had 8” brakes, a pointy tail and perhaps a number 6 Powerplus supercharger. Sadly, the owner Harry Leeson, was killed while racing a C-Type( presumably this car) in
30 the 1932“ JCC 1000 Mile Race” at Brooklands. Early in 1933, the car was bought by race-drivers, John Ford and Maurice Baumer. They had it modified by the MG factory, to J4 specifications, so it would suit road racing at Le Mans and“ Mannin Beg”( Isle of Man) later that year. I distinctly remember Lou telling me that the changes included a large capacity slab fuel tank in place of the pointy tail, 12 inch brakes, a Laystall crankshaft and the bigger( number-8 Powerplus) supercharger. John Thornley, who was Director and General Manager of the MG Company, actually calls the car a J4 in his book. He states( in the chapter about J-Types) that Ford and Baumer took their J4 to 6th place at Le Mans and 3 rd place at Mannin Beg in 1933. Anders Ditlev Clausager also calls the car“ The supercharged MG J4 Midget” in his book titled“ Le Mans”. I understand why Lou often called the car“ The J4 Prototype”. A class win and sixth place outright at Le Mans, was quite an achievement for the 750cc MG. Nuvolari, in his only Le Mans race, drove the winning 2.3 litre supercharged Alfa, followed by two similar cars in second and third places. Fourth was a 1.1 litre Riley and fifth a 1.5 litre Aston Martin. I don’ t know any C0291 history during 1934, however, Ford and Baumer, both went on to race K3 Magnettes. Baumer bought K3 028 in 1934 and Ford bought K3 027 in 1935. In about 1935, John Dutton, whose family owned Anlaby Station near Kapunda, bought C0291 and a Vauxhall 30 / 98 in England. He shipped both cars to Adelaide and planned to select one to drive at Victor Harbor in the South Australian Centenary Grand Prix on 26 th December