MGA Twin Cam: cracking newsreel of a mid-century legend…

The MGA TC was a truly incredible little sports car.

And to underline the fact, we found this cracking little Pathé newsreel, which lauds the achievements of the pocket-sized road racer that was designed, built and nurtured in Oxfordshire.

We’re not sure whether the Pathé corporation was in the pocket of the MG board, but no matter. When you look at what this little car was capable of, there can be no doubt of what an amazing piece of engineering this machine represented.

Remember – this was the mid-late fifties – and the car only had a 1.5-litre engine. Still, it averaged 89 MPH around La Sarthe in the 1955 Le Mans event and performed admirably in its class. But it also performed well on the rally stage too – and the Twin Cam road going version (pictured here), retailed for less than £1000.

The MGA TC was an evolution of the EX182 Le Mans prototype that ran so well at Le Mans in 1955 – and was more or less identical to the car that raced – with all round disc brakes and bang up to date steering and suspension – though the Le Mans engine never went into the production. For some reason, there were only a little over 2000 MGA TCs produced – apparently falling behind in sales to the very able Triumph TR3 and the Austin Healey.

For us, the video really brings to life how much fun this sort of mid-century motoring must have been – particularly the action shots at the banked test track. Moving at 100 MPH in a machine like this would have been a cut above the contemporary motorway cruise. And there’s no trick image stabilising tech in this production. This MGA ran smooth at over 100MPH.

Available in an auction near you for roughly the same price as that motorway munching Audi A6