Information sought for an historic MG

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

The handsome car in these photographs is a 1933 MG J2, chassis J3096, owned by Peter Croft of New Zealand. As with many sports-cars of its time, it experienced some excitement early in its life, but how much? Peter only knows his car's history from 1937, and hopes somebody might be able to help fill in the four-year gap between then and its original sale.

It is known that, from the factory, J3096 was despatched in mid-April, 1933, to C. A. Attwood & Sons of Stafford, and it received the registration number VT 9391 on May 1st. On August 16th, shortly after the J2 had been transferred to J. Ridgeway & Co. of Hanley, near Stoke-on-Trent, MG passed a credit of five per cent to Attwoods, which claimed the J2 had been a demonstrator. As Peter notes, "This late claim is slightly suspicious due to the car being some four months old by then and in the hands of another car dealer. There was never an application for a guarantee card made, all details that the late guru of the J2, Mike Hawke, claimed was a sign of some minor skulduggery."

Another slightly confusing discrepancy is that Attwoods went to the local Post Office in Stafford to register all its cars, except J3096, which was for some reason registered in Stoke.

On the subject of Attwoods, C. R. Attwood's son, H. R. Attwood, entered the J2 in the SUNBACS Vesey Cup Trial in May, 1933, and succeeded in winning the Watson Gwynne Bowl by finishing first in the 1,100cc class, only 0.4 points behind the trial's overall winner. The younger Attwood also raced a C-type 'Montlhéry' Midget at Ards and Brooklands, in addition to other competitions. It's more than likely that J3096 was his steed in a few more events, although nothing is known for certain at present. Incidentally, H. R. was not the most prominent member of the family. His son, Richard 'Dickie' Attwood, was a well-known driver in the 1960s, competing in Formula One with BRM, Lotus and Cooper, and at Le Mans in a Ford GT40 and a Porsche 917, in which he was the outright winner of the 24 Hours in 1970.

The J2 did not stay very long with Ridgeways, which had sold it by the end of August, 1933. That, unfortunately, is where the trail goes blank. It does not resurface until August 4th, 1937, when it was recorded in the yard of A. J. Fryer & Sons of Derby Road, Uttoxeter. It received its last British road tax at the end of July and is presumed to have been sold by Fryers to New Zealand, as it arrived in Wellington in October, 1937.

Since landing in the Antipodes, it saw further competition use, as the photographs show. An apprentice mechanic, Jim Cummins, was very active in campaigning it. It was captured  at the 1953 Lady Wigram Trophy at Wigram Airfield, Christchurch, where Cummins drove it in a support race, a handicap for cars which weren't quite cut out for racing against the mighty Alfa Romeos and Ferraris which dominated the trophy in its early years. He is also known to have driven it in the 1952 and 1953 Mairehau road races, just north of Christchurch. Peter has now been enjoying it for many years, and continues to get good use out of it.

In closing, we might add that Peter also owns a post-war HRG 1500, originally registered KLL 565, which came to our attention recently when we found it in a photograph in the editorial archive. If anybody knows any more about the HRG or the MG, he would be very grateful to hear about it.

Words: Zack Stiling; photographs: Peter Croft
 

Kommentar abgeben...