Original Body No: 'NA0521'

• MG/Eyston Team car. Ex-Captain George Eyston
• Chassis no. NA0520
• 1934 Ulster Tourist Trophy
• Class Winner - Brighton Speed Trials 1935 & 1936

The tremendously successful MG sports car marque was founded in a 1920s sales promotion sideline of Morris Garages, an Oxford-based retail sales and service centre owned by entrepreneurial industrialist - and philanthropist - William Morris, later to become Lord Nuffield. His manager there was sporting-orientated, Cecil Kimber, who had a series of modified standard production Morris Oxford cars specially built for similarly sporting clients and named them the MG Super Sports.

Great Britain's most important single motor race through the 'tween-war years 1919-1938 had been the RAC Tourist Trophy, run upon a rural road circuit based upon the market town of Ards in Ulster. It was a handicap event and had been won by MG in both 1931 and 1933. This fine-history MG NE Magnette we now offer here - 'JB 4748' - was one of the quasi-works machines specially built for the 1934 TT, and entered in it by prominent British racing personality Captain George Eyston's independent racing team.

Every winning TT car since 1928 had used a supercharged engine. The 1933-winning MG K3 Magnette - famously driven by the Italian superstar Tazio Nuvolari - had been virtually a pure sports-racing design. For 1934 the race organisers opted to restrict entry to more standard unsupercharged and fully road-equipped models, hopefully to encourage entries from more British manufacturers than had become the case.

MG at the time had no unsupercharged sports car available for racing. Both the N-Type Magnette and the P-type Midget were in production, but neither fitted TT regulations, as their bodies were too wide. Instead, Cecil Kimber and his engineers opted to modify their N-Type. They retained the lower half of the 6-cylinder engine, and fitted new narrow bodywork as required by the RAC's race regulations.

With uprated camshaft and carburettors, power was increased by some 30 per cent. MG backed two three-car TT teams. The Eyston team cars including 'JB 4748' offered here were painted cream, with brown mudguards and two narrow body-long stripes. The eventual race winner - by the narrow margin of just 17 seconds from Eddie Hall's special Bentley - proved to be contemporary racing motor-cyclist-cum-racing driver Charlie Dodson in his Eyston-entered MG NE.
Only seven such TT NEs were built, the six team cars plus one spare, making this model the rarest racing MG produced, rarer than the QA (eight built), J4 (nine built) and RA (10 built).

But since the NE's usefulness was greatly restricted for other races, three of them were fitted with surplus K2 bodies to become successful trials and rally cars. Three, however, were then sold to the Evans Bros of Bellevue Garage, London, converted back to racing NE trim and prepared for the 1935 Ulster Tourist Trophy. Meanwhile, 'JB 4748' here was sold to British-resident Georgian aristocrat and private owner/driver George Bagratouni, nom de course for Prince George Imeretinsky of Georgia.

From some 25 events contested between 1935-37, Bagratouni achieved eight hill-climb and speed trial class wins, before replacing this MG with an exotic Alfa Romeo. He sold 'JB 4748' via Australian dealer/enthusiasts John Snow and Jack Saywell to John Sherwood of Sydney. He wanted it for the 1938 Australian Grand Prix at Bathurst.

The car retained its TT body, painted light blue at time of import, and John Sherwood later finished second in Bathurst's Easter long-distance race before winning the later Castrol Trophy event.

The car passed to Tom Lancey for Bathurst, 1940, and while advertised for sale during the WW2 years it did not sell until 1946, when acquired by C.H. (Ced) James of Sydney. He campaigned it in the January, 1947, Marsden Park Airstrip Races, the 1948 Springwood and Hawksbury Hillclimbs, and the Mount Druitt races of both 1948 and '49 when driven by former Bugatti exponent, 'Buddy' Luke.

Through the 1950s the NE passed through numerous ownerships - inheriting a Holden engine - until purchased by Fred Gray c.1963, when he registered it with the Triple M Register of the British MG Car Club. At the time the car's body number was incorrectly recorded as 'NA 0521', and it was not until that machine was discovered in Scotland in 1968 that the number was corrected.

Fred Gray sold the car to John Caddy, who in the late-1960s sold it to Lance Dixon. In 1971 he found an N-Type engine and gearbox in England fully restored the car in original TT style. Upon completion it was Victoria State-registered '70.382', and later 'NE 934'. Lance Dixon and his wife Yvonne used it frequently in MG and Vintage events, until in 1982 it was acquired by Peter Briggs for display at his York Motor Museum in Western Australia, punctuated by regular Vintage outings. At the MG National Rally in Perth, it won its Concours d'Elegance class, placed third in the speed event and third in class in the Motorkhana.
John Hunting restored the car again for the MG National Rally, Perth in April 1995, it being driven to all events and again winning its Concours class.
The car is now offered here from the late Peter Briggs's York Motor Museum collection where it has resided for the last 40 odd years with a substantial history folder it is time for a new custodian to be part of this motorcar's illustrious and well documented history.

Please note that this vehicle is from outside the UK. Our customs agents, CARS UK, will manage all post sale customs administration. A fee of £350+VAT will be charged on the buyer's invoice to administer both import or export customs movements. If the buyer also chooses to ship with CARS UK, this will be quoted separately. If this vehicle is to remain in the UK, it will be subject to Import VAT at the reduced rate of 5% on the hammer price. This vehicle will not be available for immediate collection after the sale and will only be released on completion of customs clearance formalities. If you have any questions regarding customs clearance, please contact the Bonhams Motorcar Department.