Daily Archives: August 21, 2012

Hot Cam – 8/45 Double 12 MG Midget

Today’s featured 8/45 Double 12 MG Midget and it’s earlier 8/33 incarnation are credited with saving MG from ruin when sales of it’s larger 18/80 models started to falter in the wake of the great economic depression at the end of the 1920’s and early 1930’s.

8/45 Double 12, MG Midget, Brooklands Double Twelve

For the M-Type as the Midget was known MG returned to it’s roots of manufacturing upgraded Morris vehicles, in this case upgrading a Morris Minor chassis which included lowering the suspension for better road holding and tweaking the brakes to cope with the mildly tuned 4 cylinder Morris Minor motor.

8/45 Double 12, MG Midget, Brooklands Double Twelve

A team of slightly modified midgets with a hot cam won the JCC Brooklands Double Twelve race in May 1930 and subsequently what became known as the Double 12 cam was fitted to production cars such as the 1931 example seen here. 3,235 M-Type midgets are thought to have been built between 1929 and 1931 when the model was superseded by the J-type.

Colin Reynolds, who is seen at the wheel, recorded the fastest overall times in the various tests at the recent Brooklands Double 12 meeting.

Thanks for joining me on this “Hot Cam” edition of edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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