The T-Series MG Midget was conceived as a direct result of the sale between of MG by Lord Nuffield to his own Nuffield Group, which was effectively passing control of the finances from “one hand to another”. The obsolete and displaced PB had an original overhead-camshaft engine and a special “crash” gear box whereas the original TA if 1936 had a more mundane overhead-valve engine and a synchromesh transmission gearbox.

Although in its general layout and design philosophy the TA was like the PB which was to say it had a channel-selection frame, a two seater open sports body paneling on a simple ash frame, sweeping front wings and free and free-steering headlamps, it was a larger simpler and altogether more pragmatic machine. Whereas the PB had been the final and far removed derivative of the 1928-1932 Morris Minor , the TA leaned heavily on the Wolseley 10/40 power train and transmission, a car that was more itself a more advanced update of the Morris model.

The most instant reaction of enthusiasts was that the TA was not a true midget but experience showed that it offered a remarkable value for money with a 1,292 engine and 54 bhp and sold for the relatively small amount of 222 British Pounds Sterling. The TA became the TB in 1939 , with a new design of short-stroke 1250 cc engine and in 1945 it became TC, with a rather wide cockpit but little modernization or upgrades. The TC was MGs first successful export-market car , and a total of exactly 10,000 were sold by the end of 1949 – most of course to the North American export markets of the US and Canada.

In the meantime Nuffield had produced the MG Y-Type which was an amalgam of Morris 8 bhp series E Body and a new independent front suspension chassis and the 1250 cc engine. This sold well, and in 1950 led directly to the launch of the TD Midget, which was essentially a modified version of that chassis, the TC’s running gear and a wider, cobbier, but still essentially a 1930’s body style. It also had steel disc wheels (the very first MG Midget to be so equipped), but was also available in left-hand drive. US customers just loved and devoured these models. Nearly 30,000 TD’s were built up and produced, amazingly for those days and production figures, by the summer of 1953.

By this time, MG was getting ready to replace the TD with a more modern up to date vehicle – worthy of both the model name plate and the car’s modern times. This update later came to become the MGA of 1955, was frozen out by the new company management called and referred to a BMC (British Motor Corporation). In place of the new design, MG were only allowed to face-lift the TD into the TF of 1953-55, which retained the same center body and doors , but incorporated a slightly smoothed out nose and a more sloping tail, still on the very same 7 foot 10 inch wheelbase of all T-Series MGs.

The TF was not a car which was liked, even when the enlarged engine was made available to its vehicle purchasers and customers in the autumn of 1954. The public had been offered old style MGs in a modernizing world of just too long a time period, and had eventually rebelled against this. Poor aerodynamics meant that a TF1500 could only reach speeds of 85 miles per hour, which was so much slower than Triumph were offering with the TR2 that is was downright embarrassing – especially so to US & Canadian potential auto buyers. Like other T-Series cars, however the TF had excellent road manners.

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