MG-Cars.info

Welcome to our Site for MG, Triumph and Austin-Healey Car Information.

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - Any still around?

Does anyone know if any of the original workers who built the TD are still around?

It would really be interesting to set up a video chat with some of them to learn firsthand how our cars were built.

Do they hold any worker get togethers?

Was there a minimum age for working at MG in the early 50's?
Bruce Cunha

I'm finding that the 40's/50's generation, the builders of these cars, the few that are left are well into their 90's now, and they couldn't be less interested in computers or anything that smacks of IT technology. With the TTORC membership, (the average age is well over 75), just getting email attachments open is proving difficult. There are the exceptions of course, but many wouldn't have a computer at all if it wasn't for the wife insisting on getting emailed pics of her great grand-kids. Cheers
Peter TD 5801
P Hehir

It is sad that there wasn’t an effort to record their oral histories.
W A Chasser

Just ask everywhere you can think of Bruce, you never know who'll answer back
Here a year or so ago I was having trouble with an African modified MGZT V8 and I'd asked around all the UK workshops, some helpfull -some not, but did manage to find out the pcm in these cars was modified for MG by Rousch the US Ford hotup guys
Sent an email to Rousch and didn't hear back for weeks then all of a sudden I got one from a fella involved in the MG engine computer development back when they were being built and he was a walking encyclopedia-He sent me heaps of diagrams and spec sheets- He told me what had to happen and put me onto another fella who was involved at the time who ran me through the method to fix the issue I had---Both these guys were fantastic contacts and thrived on getting some feedback from the other side of the world on a car they'd helped develop but had never seen - I sent them heaps of pics of the car which surprised them as they thought they were all station wagons-----both are now good online friends

Just keep asking -you just never know
willy
William Revit

The trouble with most of the factory team was that they were just line people and were doing day to day jobs. You have to get a bit higher into the organization to get to the people who designed and developed the cars.

Those that were interested in preserving the history took the time to document their experiences in books.

For example here is Henry Stone's book.

https://www.amazon.com/mania-Henry-Stone-told-Knudson/dp/B0006YS78W

And of course Dick Knudson documented so much of the history through various publications, newsletters and articles.
Christopher Couper

Remember, that the TD stopped production 67 years ago. So if any workers are still around, they are likely in their 80s or older. A good friend of mine, Jim Simpson, who was the head of incoming inspections and the works fire chief, and who started at MG at age 14as the tea boy, just passed away at 100 years old, two years ago.
Luckily, Dave Shelburne did a series of videos of various MGs and did oral histories with a number of workers, including Jim Simpson. They can be found on YouTube.
There is also quite a bit about the factory personalities in Brian Moylan's book "MG's Abingdon Factory, Those were the days...".
Lew Palmer

The person who has done most to record all this information direct from the people who made them is Tom Wilson.

David
David Wardell

The Facebook group "MG factory Abingdon remembered" seems to be a gathering point for MG workers, but they are mostly from the MGB days.
M Magilton

Chris, While I don't disagree that the management types might have more design information, The line workers could give good information on how the cars were actually build.

I would love to know what were the different shops? How much of the parts were assembled in the plant and what ones came from other suppliers and how they came.

A question I have would be how did they paint the underside of the firewall body color. Did they have a pit that the body rolled over? Did they hook it up to the hoist clamps we see in Safety fast and raise it up?

What was the general way they painted the cars. In Safety Fast, you can see fenders of different colors in racks (See Pictures). It looks like the body was painted and then a similar color fender was pulled from the rack and put on the car.












Bruce Cunha

This thread was discussed between 22/04/2020 and 23/04/2020

MG TD TF 1500 index

This thread is from the archives. Join the live MG TD TF 1500 BBS now