HISTORIC RIDE
First MG TA resides in Burnaby
The first Mustang built with serial number 5F08F100001 was a white convertible originally sold to Newfoundland pilot Stanley Tucker.
It is now on permanent display at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
The first Corvette to roll off the General Motors assembly line in Flint, Michigan and introduced to the public at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel in January, 1953 had experimental serial number EX 122. It is part of the collection of New Jersey car dealer Charles Kerbeck who calls Kerbeck Chevrolet the world’s largest Corvette dealer.
The first two-passenger Ford Thunderbird was discovered languishing in the back of a body shop by San Francisco enthusiast George Watts in 1986. Later purchased by the Ford Motor Company for display, in 2009, the car fetched $660,000 at the Barrett Jackson Auction.
The first production T Series MG that started the sports car craze that spread across the world is in, well, in Burnaby.
The caretaker of what may be the most important MG ever made is longtime enthusiast Colin Fitzgerald. He saw the car advertised in a British magazine 40 years ago and bought it.
Fitzgerald’s MG TA was built in March of 1936 as the first of the iconic low-slung production sports cars. It features a folding convertible top, reliable fourcylinder Morris engine with twin SU carburetors, floor-shifted four-speed transmission, leathercovered bucket seat bases with full back rest, multiple gauges in the dashboard, a long louvered hood and wire wheels.
It is the father of the sports cars that have been loved and enjoyed for generations.
Being the first of a run of tens of thousands of T Series sports cars, Fitzgerald’s TA is a hand-built one-off example. It is the only T Series car without an external rear fuel tank and has a unique number of hood louvres.
Fitzgerald can trace its ownership back to 1954 when a Devon, England enthusiast owned it.
“Prior to 1936, MG was building specialty custom and high-end cars for affluent buyers,” Fitzgerald says. “The T Series cars marked the beginning of full production of the MG sports cars.”
The MG T Series is a range of sports cars that were produced by MG in Abingdon, England from 1936 to 1955. The series includes the MG TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD and MG TF Midget models. The last of these models, the TF, was replaced by the MGA.
MG manufactured 3,300 TA models between 1936 and 1939, a time frame in which they also produced 5,000 big cars. including sedans and four-passenger convertibles. World War Two limited production of MG TB cars to only 300.
Following the war, 10,000 MG TC sports cars were produced and there were 30,000 TD models built from 1949 to 1953. These sports cars were largely exported because postwar England desperately needed revenue.
MG sports cars were in such demand in Canada, Austin of England forced its dealers to take four Austin Marinas in order to get one MG TD.
Although Fitzgerald’s 1936 MG TA is the first T Series MG built, it carries serial number TA 0251.
He explains that company general manager Cecil Kimber was into numerology. The MG symbol is an octagon with eight sides. The numbers 251 add up to eight. The MG plant telephone number was 251 and so was its post office box.
And so, the first MG TC was serial number TC0251 and the first TD was number TD0251.
Vancouver-born Fitzgerald has had a long association with MG cars. As a 12-year-old, he was smitten by his Sunday school teacher’s 1948 MG TC and vowed to get one someday.
While running a construction company in 1972, he bought a 1952 MG TD for his regular daily driver. Four years later, he bought his 1936 MG TA.
“My thinking was I would have one MG to drive and another to work on,” he says, noting that he still owns the 1952 MG TD.
He started Octagon Motors with a friend in 1979 to provide parts and service to a large contingent of MG owners in the region. The company is still in business under new ownership.
Fitzgerald values his 1936 MG TA so much it spends most of the time in the downstairs living area of his expansive Burnaby home. It has its own corner surrounded by MG memorabilia.
He has a restored MG TC which he and his wife have driven everywhere.
His original 1952 TD has been apart for restoration for many years.
Alongside in the stable is his wife’s MGA used as a summer driver, and a beautifully restored 1938 MG Tickford drop-head sedan, which he restored over a 10-year period.
Fitzgerald has left his 80-yearold MG TA in the condition it was when it arrived at the Vancouver docks 40 years ago. It’s a time capsule and arguably the most important MG sports car of them all.
“It really belongs in a museum, but I have no reason to sell it so I intend to keep it,” the enthusiast says.
His rare and historic sports car will be on display at Saturday’s 47th Annual Heritage Classic Field, sponsored by Canadian Classic MG Club and the XK Jaguar Register at Waterfront Park in North Vancouver. The event is free for spectators.