Mountweazel

Mountweazel (pronounced mount-wee-zuhl)

Factitious material deliberately included in a publication as a “copyright trap”, allowing identification of plagiarism and potential violations of copyright.

1975: A definition by Henry Alford (b 1962) which appeared in a 1975 edition of The New Yorker, referencing an entry in the fourth edition (1975) of the New Columbia Encyclopedia, involving the fictitious Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, said to have died in an explosion while on assignment for the just as fanciful “Combustibles” magazine.  Mountweazel was not a legitimate family name, the neologism coined by Karen Tweedy-Holmes (b 1942), then an editor for the encyclopedia, the purpose being a fictional biographical entry for the imaginary Lillian Virginia Mountweazel.  For all purposes (other than the doomed heroine), mountweasel is used without an initial capital.  Mountweazel is a noun; the noun plural is mountweazels.

Ms Tweedy-Holmes (there can have been few finer names for a lexicographer) described her tragic heroine as an American fountain designer turned photographer, born in 1942 in Bangs, Ohio and most noted for her commissioned series of images of the mailboxes of rural America, her death said to have come in 1973.  Ms Tweedy-Holmes authoritative (and wholly bogus) biographical entry for the late Ms Mountweazel read: “Mountweazel, Lillian Virginia, 1942–1973, American photographer, b. Bangs, Ohio.  Turning from fountain design to photography in 1963, Mountweazel produced her celebrated portraits of the South Sierra Miwok in 1964.  She was awarded government grants to make a series of photo-essays of unusual subject matter, including New York City buses, the cemeteries of Paris and rural American mailboxes.  The last group was exhibited extensively abroad and published as Flags Up! (1972).  Mountweazel died at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.”  The coining was for the purpose of a “copyright trap”, in this context an apparently legitimate dictionary entry structurally and stylistically indistinguishable from thousands of others, the idea being that were another publication to include a “Lillian Virginia Mountweazel” entry with the same “facts”, that obviously would be a plagiarism and potentially a breach of copyright.

Combustibles magazine (special issue, 4 June, 1973).

Ms Mountweazel may never have lived but in death is memorialized in the Lillian Virginia Mountweazel Research Collection which includes an “extensive collection of Combustibles Magazine” covers, some editions including her assignments, notably “the whimsical history of fireworks” and “disturbing revelations” about Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) who in 1945 had been employed by the US government, suddenly rather more interested in the missiles the German could help them build rather than his wartime use of slave labor.  There’s also the revelation the Flags Up! project, although promoted as the USPS (US Postal Service) using “captivating imagery” to demonstrate how the new ZIP codes enhanced “the efficiency and modernization of the postal system”, actually was funded by the CCF (Congress for Cultural Freedom), a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) “front organization” used during the Cold War to produce anti-Soviet propaganda.  The “messaging” in Flags Up! was to show the way freedom of thought and the expression of ideas was allowed freely to flow between Americans, however remote they might be.  Of course, also included is the “special issue” of Combustibles (4 June, 1973) in which was announced the death the previous day of Ms Mountweazel, killed in the crash of a Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 SST (supersonic transport) passenger airliner during the 1973 Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport.  In the accident, all six crew members died along with eight in the nearby village of Goussainville, Val-d'Oise where Ms Mountweasel had been researching “the negative health effects of sound pollution in communities near major international airports.”  After her death, photojournalism scholar Pierre Menard, acknowledged Ms Mountweazel as “one of the most important in the world of pyromaniac publishing.”  Pierre Menard was also factitious, the name borrowed from Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote (Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote), a short story by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986).

Official Journal of the Institute of Explosives Engineers, March 2026 edition.  It would seem women involved in “blowing-up stuff” prefer to wear sensible shoes which seems wise.

While there was no “Combustibles” magazine (although there would seem to be a need for one), for students of such things or enthusiasts of the art & science of “blowing-up stuff”, the (IEE) Institute of Explosives Engineers (Voice of the Explosive Industries) publishes the quarterly Official Journal of the Institute of Explosives Engineers, currently distributed to a membership of some 2,000 “highly qualified engineers and specialists” involved in blowing-up stuff.  Additionally, copies are made available to selected academics, professional institutions and those in the business (of blowing-up stuff).  As well as academic papers, features and articles, the journal functions as a trade publication with information and reviews of new products and services.  The editors welcome submissions relevant to blowing-up stuff and, if appropriate, prior to publication, will submit texts for professional peer review.  The next International Explosives Conference will be held between 16-18 June, 2026 at the Parkgate Hotel in Cardiff, Wales and the institute recommends the early booking of hotel rooms because on the evening of the 16^th, Take That (an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990) will be performing their Circus Live show at the city’s Principality Stadium.

A synonym of mountweazel is the German Nihilartikel, said to have appeared in 2003 as a hoax in the German-language Wikipedia in 2003 and later picked up by the English version from which it spread through blogs, print publications and such, these serving as “references” appearing to legitimate subsequent use.  The construct of Nihilartikel (being a noun, if used in the original German, with an initial upper case) was the Latin nihil (nothing), from nihilum (from ne- (not) +‎ hīlum (the least bit)) + the German Artikel (article) (from the Middle High German artikel, from the Latin articulus.  This is defined (in the jargon of Wikipedia) as a type of citogenesis (a circular form of citation where various sources report each other, creating a false impression of reliability).  The construct being cit(e) +‎ -o- +‎ -genesis, citogenesis was in 2011 coined by US engineer Randall Munroe (b 1984), presumably on the model of the homophone cytogenesis (the formation, development and variation of cells), the construct being cyto- + genesis.  Cyto- (“cell” as used in biology) was a learned borrowing from the Ancient Greek κύτος (kútos) (container, receptacle) and genesis (origin, start; point (in time) at which something comes into being). came via Latin from the Ancient Greek γένεσις (génesis).  Cite (in this context “to quote; to repeat, to make mention of; to list”) was from the Old French citer, from the Latin citare (to cause to move, excite, summon) and frequentative of ciēre (to rouse, excite, call).  So, just as cytogenesis describes cells being formed and variations emerging from components, in citogenesis what is happening to the assembly of “apparent (but erroneous) facts” with “authenticity verified” on the basis of other “apparent (but erroneous) facts that gained their “apparent veracity” merely from the frequency of citation.

The Pentagon Papers.  In 1971, the USSC (US Supreme Court) ruled 6-3 against granting the Nixon (Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974)) administration an injunction preventing further publication excerpts of the documents by the New York Times & The Washington Post, holding the government’s attempt to invoke “prior restraint” violated the First Amendment (freedom of the press) of the constitution and the claim of a threat to national security was not in this case sufficiently justified to allow suppression of the press.  It’s interesting to speculate how today’s USSC would rule on the same facts.

For other purposes, there are variants of the “copyright trap”.  Organizations wishing to detect the source of “leaks” (documents being photocopied and given to unauthorized recipients) would sometimes make visually almost imperceptible changes (an additional space, a character in a slightly different font etc) in certain copies, meaning an analysis of a “leaked copy” could isolate the source.  That obviously depended on the existence of relatively few original copies but that is the nature of leaked material.  The digitization of documents of course made copying and leaking not only quicker and easier but also made possible grabbing data on a huge scale.  While in 1969 Dr Daniel Ellsberg (1931–2023) had to spend several evenings alone with one of Rand Corporation’s photocopiers to duplicate the 7000-odd pages that became “the Pentagon Papers”, by the time Edward Snowden (b 1983) and Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning (b 1987) were stealing US government data by the gigabyte, all they needed was a USB stick onto which stuff silently was copied as they went about their paid work.  All digital copies of a document are of course functionally identical and even metadata which can reveal something about the copying (such as a date stamp) can be edited so what sometimes was done was the insertion of something hidden which could be detected only at the software level and not visually.  The best known was the “Alt + 255 trick”, a keyboard combination which created the NBSP (non-breaking space) Unicode character U+00A0.  Visually indistinguishable from the standard gap (U+0020) created by a tap of the space bar, the location could be detected using certain text editors so, correctly implemented, it would be a useful device for tracing sources of leaks.  However, “software tricks” can be detected by other software which is why crooked Hillary Clinton’s (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) legal team (a well-resourced and busy crew) insisted on printing out thousands of E-mails because of fears the investigators exploring the (still not adequately explained) “servergate” scandal might detect in the raw files something crooked Hillary had deleted.

The companion (in form though not intent) of the mountweazel is the “ghost word”.  A ghost word is a word that enters a dictionary, reference book or some other reputable source, despite being “wrong”.  The causative events have been varied, including misunderstood abbreviations, typographical errors, printer's mistakes, errors in transcription or translation, scribal copying errors, damaged manuscripts, corruptions in transmission and mishearings of audio recordings.  While advances in technology have made it possible more efficiently to identify ghost words, the increasing use of OCR (optical character recognition) on texts of sometimes dubious legibility may yet create a few and given the propensity of AI (artificial intelligence) bots to “make-up stuff”, there’s likely to be a new generation yet to be discovered.  In linguistics, the professionals distinguish between “ghost words” and “phantom words” and the distinction matters in their rarefied world but to most of us the latter probably would be thought mere “spelling errors”.

Few have made a great as contribution to the study of the English language as Walter William Skeet, the ghost word but one of his minor legacies.

All that matters for purposes of definition is that the word has no actual history of use in the language.  One celebrated example was “dord” which appeared in the 1934 edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, defined as “density”.  What had happened was the chemistry section’s editor had written a note saying: “D or d, cont/ density” (meaning “uppercase D or lowercase d is the abbreviation for density”) but a typesetter misread the spaces, blending the characters to create a “new word”.  Until 1939 “dord” sat on its page in Webster’s, apparently without causing trouble but it was noticed during an internal review and a “plate change/imperative/urgent” instruction was sent to the printer; at that point the linguistic exorcism was effected but, because lead-times and product supply-lines were then longer, not until 1947 were Webster’s confident they successfully had “de-dorded” things.  It could of course have been different.  Had chemists ((The origin, start; point (in time) at which something comes into being). or anyone else) decided dord was a “perfectly cromulent word” and use had achieved critical mass, it would have become a “real word”.  Quite when the term “ghost word” first was used in this sense is uncertain but lexicographers agree it was popularized by English mathematician, philologist & Anglican deacon Walter William Skeat (1835–1912), notable for his seminal work in editing Medieval texts.

The neologism “cromulent” appeared in Lisa the Iconoclast (episode 16, season 7 of the US animated TV series The Simpsons (1989-) which aired on Fox on 18 February, 1996.  Cromulent (acceptable; valid; correct) was deliberately not “a real word”, the gag being it was included in the script to be used by one character to assure another that “embiggen” (to make larger) was “a real word”.  So it was a funny line but the irony was embiggen had a (limited) history of use dating from 1884.  In the years since, it has been included in mainstream dictionaries and has found a niche in the mysterious world of string theory, a collection of explanations of the structure of the universe; being under the rubric of quantum gravity, string theory is understood only by a handful of specialists, not all of whom agree with each other.  Probably few would deny embiggen deserves to be in the jargon of string theory but whether the discipline is cromulent science continues to divide opinion.

Warren Harding (1865–1923; POTUS 1921-1923), New Year's Day, 1920.  Harding presided over a scandal-plagued administration and his early death might have been one of those “good career moves”.  Theodore Roosevelt’s (TR, 1858–1919; POTUS 1901-1909) daughter Alice Longworth (1884–1980) “knew everybody” in twentieth century US politics and in summing up Harding concluded: “Harding wasn’t a bad man, he was just a slob.”

There have over the years been many “ghost words” (the authoritative Wiktionary listing 33 instances in English of examples meeting their strict criterion).  It’s not enough that a word is “wrong”; whether fictitious, malicious, erroneous or whatever, to become a “ghost word” it must in some work of reference be presented as “genuine” and in that form endure long enough to take on some sort of life.  Humorists and experimentalists have of course coined or repurposed words which have entered mainstream use but these are not ghost words because their lineage was documented.  There are also “pseudo ghost words” (those treated as such but with a verified history authenticating the alleged error), a celebrated example being Warren Harding’s use during his successful 1920 presidential campaign of “normalcy” instead of “normality”, the section of his speech containing the offending word was almost aggressively alliterative:

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

Unrelated: The mountain weasel (Mustela altaica), an inhabitant of high-altitude regions in parts of Asia including Kazakhstan, Tibet, India, Mongolia, north-eastern China and southern Siberia.

In saying "normalcy", he may have misspoken or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Although Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the “mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry” but subsequently it had on several occasions appeared in print as a synonym of normality.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the most linguistically fastidious who insist the use in geometry remains the only meaning and all subsequent applications are mistakes.  In these circumstances, a misspeak “does not a ghost word always make”.  At the time, many assumed Mr Harding had “misspoken”.  For someone to “misspeak” was then understood to mean “saying something incorrectly, unclearly or inaccurately (by mistake).  Misspeak thus distinguished unintentional errors, mispronunciations or “slips of the tongue” from deliberate lies.  “Misspeak” had enjoyed a darkly amusing late career change.  Historically, it meant (1) to fail to pronounce, utter, or speak correctly or (2) to speak insultingly, disrespectfully or inappropriately ( a use long obsolete) but in recent decades it has evolved as a “weasel word” (a word used to hedge a statement, making it vague; equivocal; ambiguous; misleading) used by politicians and others tacitly to admit having lied without having to say: “I lied”.  So it’s beyond a euphemism (which has a hint of polite respectability) and something most associated with crooked Hillary Clinton, notorious for her “strained” relationship with truthfulness although to be fair to crooked Hillary (difficult, but it can be done), her husband (Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001)) did not in such matters set a stellar example.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

A malapropism is a literary device and not a ghost word.  Mrs Malaprop was a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s (1751-1816) play The Rivals (1775); she had the habit of substituting inappropriate but like-sounding words that would take on a ludicrous meaning in the sentence in which they appeared (her intended compliment “nice arrangement of epithets” came from her lips as “nice derangement of epitaphs”).  That was very different from a “mere typo”, a breed which tends either to be annoying or amusing but which in certain documents could be consequential (consider “prescribe” vs “proscribe”) but typos can also coin words.  “Hodling” was intended to be in the text string “I am holding”, typed by a cryptocurrency investor who wished to assure others in the chatgroup he was “holding” his Bitcoin position and not selling despite the sudden drop in the price.  Unfortunately, he’d reputedly enjoyed half a bottle of whisky (or whiskey) so finger control on the keyboard was diminished, thus the word-making “I am hodling.”  That proved a linguistic gift because “hodl” (hold) entered the jargon of the cryptocoin jockeys and hodlers (those who do not react to every price downturn by selling) are thought a fearless elite. 

Applied spoonerism: First assembled in 1977, the Cunning Stunts was a London-based, feminist performance collective.  Suffering the internal conflicts perhaps endemic to collectives, the Cunning Stunts dissolved in 1982, having seemingly worked their concept dry.  In the UK, much alternative theatre didn’t survive the 1980s, the administration of Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) dismantling many of the often left-wing local authorities which had provided a substantial proportion of the funding.

Nor is a spoonerism likely to become a ghost phrase.  A spoonerism is a play on words in a phrase in which the initial (typically a consonant) sounds of two or more of the words are transposed.  It was named after Oxford don the Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844–1930), who was alleged to have made many such slip-ups (“Our dear old queen” becoming “Our queer old dean”) although among scholars it’s suspected that while doubtless he made a few, there was likely a healthy industry among his students (and perhaps even his fellow dons) is concocting a more to be attributed.  Another variant was the mondegreen.  Mondegreen was coined by US editor & journalist Sylvia Wright (1917-1981) who, in a piece published in 1954 in Harper's Magazine, recalled a childhood memory of mishearing her mother read a line in the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o' Moray (which appeared in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) by the English clergyman bishop and antiquarian Thomas Percy (1729-1811)): “They have slain the Earl o' Moray, / And laid him on the green”, the second line misheard as, “And Lady Mondegreen”.  Now an acknowledged descriptor, “mondegreen” didn’t appear in mainstream dictionaries until the twenty-first century and that was a product of lists of “obscure or unusual” words beginning to proliferate on the internet as bandwidth increased and cost fell.  Not all novelties pleased the editors but mondegreen was nerdy enough to make the lexicographical cut.  Structurally, there’s no reason why a misspeak, malaproprism, spoonerism or mondegreen can’t become a ghost word; it’s all in the history.

Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo in his battered 1959 Peugeot 403 Cabriolet.

Both embiggen and cromulent are not ghost words because they were positioned as “joke words” rather than being errors and nor are they mountweazels because they were inserted into the script as something other than copyright traps.  Essentially, a mountweazel deliberately is fake while a ghost word is in some sense “wrong”, the distinction summed up as: (1) a ghost word is an error mistaken for truth while (2) a mountweazel is a fabrication presented as truth for strategic reasons.  There are however limitations to the mountweazel’s utility as a copyright trap, the classic example the legal squabble which came to be dubbed “the Columbo Trap”.  Columbo was a TV detective drama which at various times between 1968-2003 was shown on the NBC & ABC networks; it started Peter Falk (1927–2011) as Lieutenant Columbo, remembered for (1) always solving the murder(s), (2) his catch phrase “just one more thing” and (3) driving a dilapidated 1959 Peugeot 403 Cabriolet (one of 504 built than year out of the 2,030 made during a five-year run (1956-1961)).

The Trivia Encyclopedia (1974): Mostly accurate.

The first edition of the best-selling book The Trivia Encyclopedia appeared in 1974; written by Fred L. Worth, it was for years a fixture on bookshop “Christmas gift” lists.  In 1984, claiming damages of US$300 million, Mr Worth filed suit against the distributors of the board game Trivial Pursuit, claiming they had stolen their game’s questions from his books.  There were many instances of copying he cited but his key piece of evidence was a mountweazel in his book: the “trivial fact” the first name of the TV detective Lieutenant Colombo was “Philip”.  This was a product of Mr Worth’s imagination but in the board game, it was included as an answer to that question.  His legal point was that while the board game’s creators could have obtained his other examples from many other sources (as indeed he had), the notion of “Philip Columbo” appeared first in his book and that it was “not a fact” was irrelevant because the basis of his suit was the unauthorized and unattributed copying.

On just about any topic, there's probably a trivia list somewhere on-line.

The distributers of Trivial Pursuit made no attempt to deny sourcing much material from Mr Worth's book, arguing “facts” are not able to receive the protection of copyright.  To emphasize the point, the company provided a long list of published texts from which information had been copied and argued it would be absurd to suggest they could be sued for providing the answer “Queen Victoria reigned between 1837-1901” because that fact appears in thousands of books.  They acknowledged an action might be possible (depending on many things) had they merely published a “book of trivial facts” (a la Mr Worth’s) but a multi-player board game in which questions had to be answered was “a substantially different product” within the meaning of copyright law.  The judge agreed, a finding upheld on appeal and the USSC declined to re-hear the case, thus reinforcing general principle “a fact cannot be copyrighted”.  Mr Worth’s response was that by definition “Philip Columbo” was thus a piece of fiction deserving copyright; the courts did not concur.  Amusingly however, others also copied Mr Worth’s mountweazel and references to “Lieutenant Philip Columbo” over the years appeared in print and on-line, Peugeot in the 1980s even running advertising campaign in which “Lt. Philip Columbo” was mentioned as the “most famous driver” of a Peugeot convertible.  That was a bit of a shift from the company’s original views on the 403 Cabriolet’s appearance in the TV series, the executives not best pleased at its dilapidated state.  Internet sleuths later published close-up screen shots of his police badge which revealed his name was “Frank Columbo”.

Rigger

Rigger (pronounced rig-er)

(1) A person who rigs.

(2) A person whose occupation is the fitting of the rigging of ships.

(3) A person who works with hoisting tackle, cranes, scaffolding (the protective or supporting structures on or around construction sites) etc.

(4) A mechanic skilled in the assembly, adjustment, and alignment of aircraft control surfaces, wings, and the like (eg parachute rigger); a person skilled in the use of pulleys, lifting gear, cranes etc.

In rowing, a bracket on a racing shell or other boat to support a projecting rowlock or other fixed fulcrum.

(6) In digital animation, one whose occupation is to outfit a computer model with controls for animation.

(7) One who rigs or manipulates (an election, a market etc); a cheater.  A rigger need hot however be doing something unlawful; the gerrymander is a form of rigging electoral outcomes by manipulating divisional (constituency, electorate etc) boundaries, a process usually within the law, even if scandalously so.  

(8) A plastic bottle of beer, typically between with a volume between 1.0-2.5 litres (1-2.6 quarts) (New Zealand).

(9) In (usually graphic) art, a long, slender, pointed sable paintbrush for making fine lines etc; said to be so called from its use for drawing the lines of the rigging of ships.

(10) In the BDSM (Bondage, Discipline (or Dominance) & Submission (or Sadomasochism)) community, a person who applies (a word in this context with a wide vista) functional or artistic rope or strap bondage to another person's body (technical competence required because some role-playing activities involve a participant "hanging by a strap"); within the community, the coordinate terms are "rope bunny" & "rope bitch".

(11) A cylindrical pulley or drum in machinery.

(12) One whose occupation is to lift and move large and heavy objects (such as industrial machinery) with the help of cables, hoists and other equipment.

1490s: The construct was rig + -er.  Rig was from the Early Modern English rygge, probably of North Germanic origin and related to the Danish & Norwegian rigge (to bind up; wrap around; rig; equip), the Swedish dialectal rigga (to rig (harness) a horse) and the Faroese rigga (to rig; to equip and fit; to make function”).  The source was perhaps the Proto-Germanic rik- (to bind), from the primitive Indo-European rign- reig-, & reyg- (to bind) or it was related to the Old English wrīhan, wrīohan, wrēohan & wrēon (to bind; wrap up; cover) which are linked also to wry (to cover; clothe; dress; hide).  The late fifteenth century verb rig was originally nautical in the sense of "to fit (a ship) with necessary tackle; to make (a ship) ready for sea" and gained the extended sense of "dress, fit out with, furnish with, provide (with something) emerged in the 1590s; that of "to adjust, put in condition for use, set in working order" is from circa 1625.  Rigger is a noun; the noun plural is riggers.

The slang meaning "pre-arrange or tamper with results" is attested from 1938, although the noun rig (a trick, swindle, scheme) had been used as early as (1775) and, apparently unrelated was the meaning "sport, banter, ridicule" dating from 1725.  The phrase “to rig the market” was used, firstly in stock exchange slang and later more generally to convey the idea very familiar in modern times: "raise or lower prices artificially to one's private advantage".  One use as a verb which faded was that meaning "ransack", from the 1560s.  It’s strange rig & rigger took that long apparently top evolve given rigging was known as a verb meaning "action of fitting (a ship) with ropes” circa 1400 and as a noun meaning "the ropes that work the sails of a ship" from the 1590s but it may be rig and rigger in this context existed in oral use.  The use in nautical & naval architecture to describe the "distinctive arrangement of sails, masts etc on a ship; the characteristic manner of fitting the masts and rigging to the hull of any vessel" (without regard to the hull) was documented from at least 1769 although a number of sources insist the first use was in 1822, probably because that’s the earliest known reference in the archives of the UK's Admiralty.

By 1843, use of "rigger" had extended to costumes and clothing outfits (especially if as a fanciful description).  In engineering, it was widely used to describe just about any creation added for some purpose but was by 1831 most associated with horse-drawn vehicles and this was later adopted to refer to trucks, buses etc, a use still common today, especially for large units.  In oil extraction, the apparatus used for well-sinking was known as a rig as early as 1875.  Rig was 1570s slang for “a wanton girl or woman" which, although long obsolete had had the odd idiosyncratic revival; it was probably related to the also obsolete use from the same era describing "to play the wanton; to romp about" (the use as a word with which to disparage women probably has never been revived because men coined or re-purposed so many others; they're spoiled for choice).  As a noun, a rigger by 1610 was "one who rigs ships", that sense later adopted to describe aircraft mechanics (1912) and those employed on oil rigs (1949).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  The –er suffix was added to verbs to create a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb; used to form an agent noun.  If added to a noun it usually denoted an occupation.

Flying Cloud (launched 1851) (1921) drawing by George Robinson, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

“Square-rigged” ships are those with (approximately) square sails rigged onto horizontal spars attached to perpendicular masts, sitting therefore square to the keel.  The spars are known also as yards and their tips, beyond the last point of attachment (or stay) are called yardarms, the part of a rig associated with the phrase “hung (ie hanged) from the yardarm”, in folklore the Admiralty’s preferred means of executing death sentences though practiced less frequently than the legend suggests.  The square-rig formation evolved as the standard ocean-going form because, when sailing downwind, it’s aerodynamically the most efficient shape which survived into the steam age, many of the early steam-ships (including naval vessels) constructed as hybrids which combined powered propulsion with square-rigged sails.  To reduce running costs and carbon emissions, there’s now a renewed interest in using sails (or sail-like structures) on commercial vessels to augment the power from huge engines burning the notoriously dirty marine oil (which is essentially what's left over after refineries have extracted other products (gasoline (petrol), diesel, kerosene etc from crude oil)).  Square was from the Middle English square, sqware & squyre, from the Old French esquarre & esquerre, (which persists in modern French as équerre), from the Vulgar Latin exquadra, the construct being ex- (from Middle English, from words borrowed from the Middle French, from the Latin ex (out of, from), from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs- (out)).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex) (out of, from), the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out) & the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  The “x” in “ex-“, sometimes is elided before certain constants, reduced to e- (eg ejaculate)) +‎ quadro, from quadrus (square), from quattuor (four).

The square-rigger MGs

1949 Jaguar XK-120 (1948-1954) with aluminum OTS (open two seater, the company's then-term for a roadster) bodywork).  

Jaguar went to the 1948 London Motor Show thinking their big announcement would be the new XK engine, the twin-cam straight-six which faithfully would serve the line for the next forty-four years.  What instead stole the show was the test-bed, the roadster in which it was installed; it was a sensation, the reaction convincing Jaguar's management to put it into production as the XK120.  However, tooling-up a production-line, even for a relatively low-volume sports car, takes time so the first 242 XK120s were hand-built with aluminum bodies affixed to an ash frame atop a steel chassis substantially shared with an existing model.  The sensuous shape was a blending of the flowing lines of the company's pre-war SS-100 roadster with some touches of mid-century modernism but there was almost no stylistic debt to the old “square rigger” sports cars which evolved in the 1920s and 1930s, characterized by the upright, angular lines of its many disparate parts, the point of comparison being the classic big ships of the sail age.  The term came into use in the immediate post-war years to differentiate these old-style sports cars from the new, modernist generation, typified by the Jaguar XK-120, which featured lower profiles and a curvaceousness which recalled the pre-war "streamliners".  From this stark contrast came the use of "square rigger" casually to apply to any sports car of the old style, the modern Morgans the last descendants.

1958 Citroën DS19 Décapotable Cabriolet d'Usine by French coachbuilder Henri Chapron (1886-1978).

In the post-war years, the term “square rigger” came most to be associated with the T-series MGs.  Replacing the P series which in two models had run between 1934-1936, the T series was, excluding the war years, in production between 1936 and 1955, the year Citroën introduced the DS (1955-1975) which provides a comparison to the still contemporary square rigger MGs as amusing as the XK120.  Somewhere during those two decades the cars descended into obsolescence but the attraction was in their charm and the entertainment delivered; it was an intimate and tactile experience which belied their miniscule power and performance which was, at least in a straight line, modest when compared even to mundane family cars of the era.  The popularity of the T-series in the early post-war US was at least partly accounted for by many US military personnel having been stationed in England between 1941-1945, whetting US appetites for the diminutive sports cars.    

MG PA Midget (1934-1935, 1973 built)

1934 MG PA Midget.

The P series Midget replaced the rather more exotic J series and although visually the relationship to previous models was obvious, the P was well-received and thought much improved.  The new OHC (overhead camshaft) 847 cm³ (52 cubic inch) in-line four cylinder engine attracted particular praise, the revised lubrication and induction system delivering the willing and lively character well suited to a sports car.  Knowing many customers would use them for competition, MG installed a strengthened four-speed gearbox and heavy-duty clutch, drivers assisted in their ability to harness the additional performance by brakes 50% larger.  It featured also one of the first safety innovations (a thing that would in decades to come become an accelerating trend), a flat-fold windscreen made from toughened non-discolorable “Triplex safety glass".

1935 MG PA Midget Airline coupé by H W Allingham of London.

The P series was offered in the colors which would come to be associated with the marque (Ulster Green, Dublin Green, Oxford Blue, Cambridge Blue, Carmine Red & Saratoga Red) but the most popular choice remained gloss-black.  The standard factory bodies were the two-seater roadster and four-seat tourer but specialist coachbuilders made available more elaborate DHCs (drophead coupés, best thought of as "cabriolets" with more emphasis on creature comforts than the pared-down roadsters) but the most memorable coachwork was that of Allingham’s Airline Coupé although, being as expensive as many larger, more practical vehicles, few were ordered.  At the time of release, the factory listed the two-seater at Stg£220 with the four-seater an additional Stg£20; the Airline cost Stg£290.

The three 1935 MG PAs of the "Dancing Daughters".  This was a MG publicity shot taken at the Brooklands circuit, prior to the team's departure for France.

Unlike many of its predecessors, the factory didn’t envisage a competition programme for the P series but a three-car team was entered in the 1935 Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic, driven by six young ladies; although it pre-dated second-wave feminism by some decades, all-female driving teams at Le Mans were not rare in the 1930s.  Managed by Captain George Eyston (1897–1979), an English engineer, and racing driver who between 1937-1939 thrice set the world LSR (Land Speed Record), the team was promoted as “Eyston's Dancing Daughters”, a reference to a popular BBC radio programme of the time which featured a troupe of teenage tap-dancers which sounds a challenging concept for radio although, in the studio, the girls were costumed skimpily “to get the atmosphere” so that must have helped.  That such outfits were tolerated in BBC House under the regime of the supposedly puritanical Sir John Reith (later Lord Reith, 1889–1971; BBC Director-General 1927-1938) might have surprised some but years after his death, his bisexuality was revealed so clearly the seemingly austere Scot got more fun out of life than previously was thought.  Those who knew Reith would never have suspected the secret of what had once gone on behind closed doors: In his controversial diary (published 1966), Lord Moran (1882-1977; personal physician to Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) wrote of Reith as “…that gaunt old Covenanter…”  The Covenanters were a most uncompromising Scottish religious and political movement of the seventeenth century.

The Dancing Daughters and their PAs on the dock, awaiting shipment to France.  As this staged shot suggests, MG attached much importance to the publicity possibilities afforded by their all-female entry.

The six attracted much attention from the press (although one of the even then nasty Fleet Street tabloids was casually dismissive of them as “bright young things” despite all having solid credentials in racing) and the three cars lasted the 24 hours which was far from typical (in 1935, 29 of the 58-strong field was classed DNF (did not finish)).  It was certainly a testament to the toughness of the little machines, the only “mechanical” issue requiring the attention of the pit crew a blown taillight bulb suffered by car #55 and one thing which did work in the team's favor was the wet weather.  Although driving in the rain, seated in an open cockpit protected only by a small “aero-screen” (the windscreens not fitted to gain aerodynamic advantage) was not ideal, the conditions did suit the the cars, the light, nimble PA Midgets less affected than heavier machines.    

Car #55 during a refueling stop, Le Mans, 1935.  For pit crews, fireproof suits and other safety gear was many years away.

The results however were modest, the PAs under-powered for a circuit with such long straights and the team completed 152 or 153 laps compared with the 222 of the victorious Lagonda M45 Rapide.  Competing in the 751-1100 cm³ class, car #56 (Joan Richmond (1905–1999) & Eva Gordon-Simpson (1901–1980)) finished 24^th & 9^th in class; car #55 (Doreen Evans (1916–1982) & Barbara Skinner (1911–1942)) 25^th & 10^th in class and car #57 (Margaret Allan (1909–1998) & Corinne Eaton (1909-2005)) 26^th & 11^th in class.  Given the arduous circuit and more powerful opposition it was a reasonable achievement but corporate expectations may have been higher for within weeks chairman Lord Nuffield (William Morris, 1877–1963) closed the MG Competitions Department, racing activities not resumed until the 1950s.    

MG PB Midget (1935-1936, 525 built)

1936 MG PB Midget.

The Le Mans experience in part prompted the more powerful PB which was introduced in 1935, the engine enlarged to 939 cm³ (57 cubic inch) and a close ratio gearbox was fitted.  There were detail changes too, one of which a consequence of an early example of environmental legislation.  In 1935, fearing an ancient species was under threat, the US government banned the export of Sequoia redwood timber so the PB’s dashboard was instead finished in the walnut more familiar to UK customers.  Very much a transitional model, the PB was available only briefly but its debut depressed interest in the PA to the extent not even a substantial discount was enough of an inducement to buyers so the factory converted the two-dozen odd remaining PAs to PBs (a tactic Shelby American later would revisit to sell left-over 1969 Mustangs as 1970 models), both variants sold for the same Stg£222.  Production of the PB ended in February 1936.

MG TA Midget (1936-1939, 3,003 built)

1937 MG TA Midget.

Corporate restructurings are nothing new and nor is the tyranny of the cost-accountant.  In 1935, the MG Car Company was sold to Morris Motors and in the inevitable agonizing reappraisal which ensued, MG lost its autonomy, reduced to a corporate brand and one expected to deliver a better return on capital: profits had to be higher.  The first sacrifice had been the competition department, followed almost immediately by the MG design office and the cancellation of the spirited little OHC engine which had given the PA & PB so much of their sporting character.  It was a harbinger for the spirit of rationalization would over decades spread and eventually drive almost all the UK’s motor industry to extinction or into foreign hands.  Under new management, the design imperatives were now profitability, simplicity of production and uniformity in parts to maximize interchangeability between ranges.  All those things are now taken for granted but at the time of acquisition, in many aspects, MG was still something of a cottage industry and while charming, it was a method of operation not suited to the economy of the troubled 1930s.   

1938 MG TA DHC by Tickford.

The purists were thus not hopeful but the T series, released in 1936 was the first in a successful line which would be in production for a dozen-odd years, the run till 1955 interrupted only by six war years during which MG’s industrial capacity was given over to military needs.  The T might not have had the OHC engine but the OHV (overhead valve) unit which replaced it, although borrowed from a pedestrian little saloon, was a larger 1292 cm³ (79 cubic inch) and generated some 50 HP, a useful increase over the 36 & 43 the P series engines had managed and delivered it in a more effortless manner than its smaller predecessors which actually made it more suitable for both the road and in competition.  Longer and wider, the T was much more spacious and hydraulic brakes were a welcome addition, all for the same Stg£222 as the PB, something which reflected the improvements in manufacturing efficiency wrought by the corporate restructuring.  There were of course a few purists who lamented no longer being able to use their skills to coax the maximum from the highly strung OHC engine but they were a dying breed belonging to the same crew that loved the challenge of straight-cut gears and thought synchromesh effete.   

1936 MG TA Midget Airline coupé by H W Allingham of London.

The T series made the Midget suddenly quite civilized although, as part of the rationalization, the factory's offering was limited to a single two-seat roadster but separate chassis were still supplied to coachbuilders, allowing Tickford (the brand of Salmons and Sons (1830)), to produce some 250 elegant DHCs with such luxuries as wind-down windows, full carpeting and a clever "three-way" convertible top which could be closed, partially opened or fully thrown back.  The Airline style was reprised by Allingham, Whittingham & Mitchel and Carbodies and although much-admired, being still expensive, only a handful were built.  Despite the misgivings, the T proved a great success and was built until 1939 when it was replaced by the TB which included a new engine which would become one of the most storied in MG’s history: the XPAG.

MG TB Midget (1939, 379 built).

1939 MG TB Midget.

By May 1939, war clouds were gathering over Europe and Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (1882–1941) was published.  Into this strange and uncertain environment, MG released the TB, visually apparently as little changed from the TA as the PB had been from its predecessor but under the louvered hood (bonnet) now sat the new XPAG engine which would until 1955 power just about every MG made and provide numerous builders of race cars with a light, robust and tuneable power-plant, one which would see some of the specials in which one was installed exceed 150 mph (240 km/h).  Over the years, with forced aspiration and other modifications, extraordinary power outputs were achieved, the tough little engine able to withstand supercharging at pressures which broke many others.  Totally new, although at 1250 cm³ (76 cubic inch) slightly smaller, there was now a bigger bore which allowed higher engine speeds and thus a "sportier" state of tune but, under the government's dopey calculation of the time (based on cylinder bore), attracted a higher tax-rate.  With the introduction of the TB, the designation TA was applied to the earlier car which hitherto had been known simply as the T series, the same act of retrospective re-christening which had turned P into PA.  The TB was priced at Stg£225 for the 2 seater and Stg£270 for Tickford’s DHC but there would be no more of the exquisite Airlines. 

1939 MG TB Midget.

The XPAG restored some of the character of the old OHC engine, the bigger bore and shorter stroke delivering the maximum 55 HP at 5,250 rpm against the 4,500 rpm of the TA, performance generally improved in all aspects and made easier to exploit with the fitting of a new four-speed gearbox which included synchromesh on all but the lowest ratio.  The TB was in production for only a few months before the declaration of war in September; the brochures for the 1940 model-year were actually ready for printing and the range had been announced when production was abruptly halted after 379 had been completed.  Rapidly, the Abingdon factory was cleared of all the machinery of car assembly and devoted for the duration to parts for aircraft, machine guns and the servicing of tanks and trucks.  In hibernation for six years, the TB would return in what would prove to be a new world and it would be called the TC. 

MG TC (1945-1949, 10,001 built).

1947 MG TC.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the cars released in the early post-war years were almost all barely revised versions of those last available before the outbreak of hostilities.  The MG TC, the first of which left Abingdon in 1945 actually was structurally more different from the TB than most of the cars of 1945-1946 were from their predecessors of 1939-1941 because the passenger compartment had been widened by four inches (100 mm), creating additional interior space without the need otherwise much to alter the body or chassis.  Other than the up-scaling and some detail mechanical and electrical upgrades, it was essentially a re-birth of the same basic design as the TA of a decade earlier.  Despite that, just resuming production to the extent of the few dozen examples completed before the end of 1945 was something of an achievement given the chronic shortages of components, steel and other raw materials.

1948 MG TC.

Immediately, the TC proved a success.  Although the new Labour Party government  (1945-1951) was as "socialist" as the UK ever got to enjoy, it was also "realist" and understood the parlous state of the nation’s finances.  For this reason it extorted the manufacturing sector with the simple mantra “export or die” and MG responded, much early TC production allocated to the export trade.  The volume of sales to the Commonwealth’s southern dominions (Australia, New Zealand & South Africa) had been expected because these had been receptive markets in the pre-war years but what proved a pleasant surprise was demand from the United States and Canada, triggered it was suspected by the number of returning servicemen who had so enjoyed or at least yearned for the little sports cars during their wartime service stationed in the UK.  Although only 2,000 of the 10,001 TCs made went to the US, the interest was enough for the factory to do a run of US-specific models and it was the TC which whetted the American appetite for small sports cars.  In the 1950s, MG and others would benefit from what became something of a craze, one which the square-riggers and their successors would for decades exploit, success enduring long after the what was being sold was obviously obsolescent.

1950 MG TC EUX.  Although none left the factory with supplementary headlights, the Lucas Flamethrowers were a popular dealer-fitted and after-market accessory.

The “US-specific” run of TCs was a batch of 494 (some sources claim 492 or 493) EXU models produced in 1948-1949 (the EXU designation (which in the original factory documents appears also as EX-U) simply a clipping of “Export-USA”).  The variation in specification from the standard TC was a response to feedback from customers and the US dealer network, most notably in the high-density markets of Los Angeles and San Francisco, the changes making the relative small machines (and their passengers!) a little less vulnerable in urban use.  The feature set included: (1) full-width chrome bumper-bars with overriders (similar in style to those which would appear on the later TD) with MG’s octagonal medallion in the centre of the back bar, the license plate mounts front & rear centrally mounted, (2) twin taillights, (aligned with the top of the gas (petrol) tank)), flashing turn indicators (activated by a switch in the centre of the dash), (3) slightly smaller headlight housings fitted with the seven inch sealed-beam units mandated by a US law (an industry-protection mechanism (the bill reputedly written by the industry)) which for decades condemned US drivers to suffer inferior headlights) and (4) twin Lucas Windtone horns located under the hood on either side of the battery box.

1950 MG TC EXU, showing correct steering wheel and seven inch headlights.

Like all TCs, the EUXs were all RHD (right hand drive) and although the last left the factory in 1949, some were registered in the US as 1950 models.  Calibrated to 105 mph (169 km/h), the speedometer was rather optimistic for a machine usually reported as having a top speed of 77 mph (124 km/h) but the robust XPAG engine was highly tuneable and, with the right gearing, a TC could go much faster.  In Australia, one dubbed the "Red Cigar" was in 1954 fitted with a Marshall Nordec J 75 supercharger and magneto ignition, the top speed claimed to be 115 mph (185 km/h), a pace assisted by the usual weight reduction measures and some attention to aerodynamics.  For the driver, there was laminated windscreen glass, a steering wheel with a gold pearl finish rather than the traditional black, the rear view mirror mounted atop the dashboard, two map lights and the positions of the ammeter, oil-pressure gauge, ignition and light switches were changed.  Although in the collector market “special models” are highly valued and attract a premium, the EXU accounted for almost a quarter of the TCs sold in the US so they're really not "rare" but there is a following for the survivors which have all the model-specific bits still in place, the headlights and bumper-bars often having been removed because so many came to be used in competition; for those seeking more speed, the weight reduction was a quicker and cheaper path than extracting more power and didn’t risk sacrificing the famous reliability.

MG TD (1949-1953, 29,644 built)

1950 MG TD.

The TD was the most popular of the T series and was the model which both established the brand in the US and encouraged others to realize the sports car craze was real and thus a market segment to explore.  From what General Motors initially regarded as the improbable success of the TC and TD would come first the tentative toe in the water that was the Chevrolet Corvette show-car of 1953 and long line of production cars which, over eight generations since 1953, continues to this day.  The TC however was, even before being discontinued in 1949, a museum-piece, if an entertaining one, and it was clear that for MG further to succeed in the US market a more modern interpretation of the sports car would be required.  The budget was limited but the culture of simplicity of production and uniformity in parts to maximize interchangeability between ranges now proved advantageous, a small team allocated to develop a prototype using mostly what fell immediately to hand.  In what was a master-class in improvisation, they shortened by five inches (127 mm) and then stiffened the chassis of a MG YA saloon, grafted on an independent front suspension & rack and pinion steering, made the changes necessary to ensure it could easily be made with either left or right-hand drive and overlaid a (slightly) modernized rendering of the TC’s body.  The design team would have preferred to create something more sophisticated and certainly something which looked more contemporary but, given the constraints under which they worked, the TD was a good result, both as a piece of engineering and, more critically, one that made commercial sense.

1952 MG TD.

If the look remained archaic, underneath, the changes were transformative and they needed to be.  The TC’s platform was little changed from the cars of the 1930s, that had been a mere refinement of a decade-old concept; while antiquated even compared to its stop-gap contemporaries of 1945-1949, it looked prehistoric against the new generation of models which emerged early in the 1950s.  The TD’s saloon-based chassis was hardly innovative but was rigid and well-executed with a modern arrangement for the independent front suspension and a rear-end which accommodated additional travel by sweeping the frame up over the axle instead leaving it underslung while the XPAG engine differed in being derived from that used in Y type so included its improvements to lubrication and attached accessories.  The most obvious change was to the body (substantially revised for the first time since 1936) and, while the stylistic legacy was apparent, it was was considerably wider and thus more spacious.  Structurally, the engineering was carried-over, body panels still mounted on the traditional wooden frame of English ash.

1953 MG TD.

A mix then of old and new as many products are.  Even though not one body-panel was unchanged and the interior fascia was new, the aesthetic still was recognizably square-rigger with cutaway doors, separate flowing front wings, running boards, stand-alone headlamps and the characteristically upright MG radiator with vertical slats.  As had been the motif since the 1920s, a centrally hinged hood, an exposed, slab-sided fuel tank and a rear-mounted spare wheel carrier maintained the period-look.  Where modernity's intrusion was unobtrusive, such as the independent front suspension, it was welcomed but some changes attracted criticism from a few.  The sturdy chromium plated bumper-bars added weight which it had be MG’s practice to avoid but reflected the needs of the US market where sales were overwhelmingly in urban areas, owners sharing roads and parking spaces with domestic automobiles increasingly equipped with substantial bumpers with something of the qualities of battering rams.  Also controversial were the smaller diameter, pressed-steel disc wheels which replaced that sports car staple, the TC’s tall, spindly spoked wire-wheels.  It was again the intrusion of the rationalists.  Because different wire-wheels would have had to be made to accommodate the arms and links of the rack and pinion steering, the corporation refused to authorize the design, tooling and production for a part unique to one model.  The disc wheels actually offered advantages, being much easier to clean and not as prone to the damage and distortion the wire wheels suffered when used on secondary roads.  In the years since, some have been unable to resist the charm of spokes and many TDs have been retro-fitted with wire wheels.

1952 MG TD (Eduardo Muñoz) following 1953 Porsche 1500 (Rezende Dos Santos), Vuelta de Aragua Road Circuit, Aragua State, Venezuela, 14 June, 1953.

The TD was much improved but as usual, there was a price to be paid.  Weighing some 200 lbs (90 KG) more than the TC while enjoying only the same 54 HP, the TD was less lively than its predecessor, something a change in gearing only partially disguised so for those who wished for more, in 1950 the factory made available a "competition" version with a higher compression ratio, 62 HP delivered, a useful increase of more than 10%.  Officially, the "competition" TD was sold only in markets where high-octane gas could be purchased at the pump but dealers entered into arrangements with the factory so those with access to supplies of avgas (aviation fuel) could enjoy the experience.  However, few bought TCs for their outright performance numbers and the increasing gulf between them and the ever more powerful vehicles increasingly surrounding them seems not to have much dampened demand, customers flocking to buy TDs upon its debut in 1949 and over a four-year run some thirty-thousand would be built, most destined for the US market, sales encouraged greatly by Sterling in September 1949 being devalued to US$2.80, an adjustment of around a third, correcting the absurd post-war maintenance of the Stg£1=US$4.03 peg set in 1940.  In period (and for years afterwards), a popular update in the US was a supercharger although, very much in the hot rod tradition, conversions to use cheap and numerous flathead Ford V8s were not unknown.

MG TF (1953-1955, 9600 built).

1953 MG TF 1250.

The TF was the last of the square-riggers.  It was also an accident of history, the result of corporate intrigue within the BMC (British Motor Corporation) conglomerate of which MG was one, small part and, even at the time, it was no secret the TF was a stop-gap model there to fill the showrooms with something (sort of) new before the arrival of the much anticipated MGA.  What had happened was corporate stablemate the Healey company reached the BMC boardroom with a proposal for their new 100 before MG got there to make the case for the MGA and the board, thinking it a bad idea to release at the same time two similar vehicles, put the MGA on hold.  It was emblematic of the way business would be done at BMC and the many successor corporations; Healey had pipped MG by several days, history for centuries recording how such luck influences the way events get to unfold.  Thus evolved the TF, a just slightly less-square rigger launched into the age of the Citroën DS and Porsche 356; even the Triumph TR2 of the time making cutaway doors look less archaic.  The TD obviously couldn’t be made to look modern and the facelift it gained to bridge the gap between the square riggers and the sleek MGA was a quick job, essentially grafting the streamlining techniques of the 1930s to the once upright front, the headlamps now fared-into the wings, the same expedient Morgan had that same year been forced to adopt when Lucas advised there would no longer produce the separate housings; without the demand from MG, the economics of scale to maintain the product in the low volume Morgan would absorb, no longer existed.  Mechanically, so little-changed was the TF that it could have be thought the TD Mark II had the appearance not so differed.  Visually refined with a sloping grill that for the first time concealed a separate radiator, the hood now sloped forward, something achieved by lowering the radiator housing by 3½ inches (90 mm) in relation to the top of the scuttle (cowl), the view from the screen that of a Hawker Hurricane compared to the Supermarine Spitfire-like TD.  The front wings with the now partially integrated headlamps were themselves fared into the hood's sides in conventional streamlining style while the rear end gained modifications to the fuel tank and spare wheel mounting which resulted in a neater finish.  In a nod to tradition, perhaps to distract from other changes, the revised facia panel re-gained the octagonal instrument pods of the pre-war years, a nostalgic touch very well received, as was the return of the option of wire-wheels. 

1955 MG TF 1500.

The TF in 1953 was released using the faithful 1250 cm³ XPAG engine which dated back to the TB Midget in 1939 and there were many who hoped for and expected more.  Whatever aerodynamic improvement the streamlining had delivered, the TF was still barely able to top 80 mph (130 km/h) while the Triumph TR2 tempted many with the lure of the then rare “ton”: 100 mph (160 km/h).  It was still an appealing drive with fine road-holding and handling but was, by any standards, sluggish.  Of this the factory were well aware and engineers discussed exotic solutions such as aluminum components to improve the power to weight ratio but it didn’t take much thought to work out the solution was that the Americans had taught: "there is no substitute to cubic inches".  In mid 1954, the TF 1500 was released, using a 1466 cm³ (89 cubic inch), big-bore version of the XPAG, now designated XPEG, power increased to a more useful 63 HP.  While it didn’t permit the TF to match the pace of the TR2 or other competition, almost 90 mph (145 km/h) was now possible and the XPEG did stimulate demand, almost all the 3,400 TF 1500s shipped to the US.  Probably not many in the US would much have been impressed by the idea of an additional 13 cubic inches but these things are relative. 

MGA (1955-1962, 101,970 built)

MG Factory Competition Team with three MGAs (EX 182), Le Mans, 1955.  No women drivers on the team this year.

The TF was the end of MG’s square-rigger era, the introduction in 1955 of the MGA both long awaited and much overdue.  Neither mechanically nor stylistically was it ground-breaking and even during its lifetime would come to be thought old fashioned but at the time of release the sensuous, flowing lines were much admired and in the decades since, appreciation has increased, the MGA today a desirable and attainable classic.  It was powered by a 1489 cm³ (91 cubic inch) version of the corporate 'B' series engine and as, a design exercise, had actually been finalized some two years before being introduced, slated to replace the TD before corporate politics prevailed.  By 1955, it had been intended to announce the MGA and use three pre-release cars (code-named EX 182) to contest the Le Mans 24 hour race in June.  That was thwarted by delays in the supply of parts so the three were forced to compete as prototypes rather than in the production class for which they'd been prepared.  Against the more formidable competition of pure race cars, success was unlikely but reliability was proved, one finishing an outright twelfth and the team finished a creditable fifth and sixth in their class although everything was overshadowed by the horrific crash that year at the sixth hour which killed 84 (the race allowed to continue, something which now astonishes), one of the MGs involved in the aftermath of the disaster.  Encouraged, three were entered in September’s RAC Tourist Trophy in Ulster, the fifth round of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation) which in 1955 hadn't yet descended to being world sport's dopiest regulatory body) World Sports Car Championship, two with experimental DOHC (double overhead camshaft) engines, a configuration which later and unhappily would figure in MGA history.

1957 MGA 1500 Roadster.

First shown at the 1955 Frankfurt Motor Show, the MGA 1500 was an immediate success; 58,750 (52,478 roadsters and 6,272 coupés) built between 1955-1959, the great bulk of which were exported, the US again the most popular destination.  In 1956, the roadster was augmented by a FHC (fixed head coupé) which, in a sign of the times, included many of the refinements saloon buyers had come to expect including wind-up windows and lockable door handles which, while appreciated luxuries, did make the FHC about 100 lb (45 KG) heavier so acceleration suffered slightly but, such were the vagaries of aerodynamics that top speed increased a little, a well tuned FHC able to attain the magic ton which just eluded the roadster, the owners of which turned to the multitude of tuners if they wanted more.

1957 MGA 1500 FHC.

Having earlier boosted the 1500 from 68 to 72 HP, the factory in 1959 again gave owners more, the engine enlarged to 1588 cm³ (97 cubic inch), the new model named MGA 1600, the additional 6 HP and the more relevant 17% increase in torque meaning the “ton” was now topped by all models and there was a dramatic improvement in braking, vastly superior (and really overdue) discs fitted at front.  Revisions to the suspension were part of normal product development but what was much appreciated on the roadster were the removable, sliding side windows in Perspex, which now sounds primitive but were quite an improvement on the celluloid flaps used on the 1500. Production of the MGA 1600 totalled 29,007 (28,730 roadsters and 277 coupés).  In 1961, for the MGA’s swansong, capacity was again enlarged, this time to 1622 cm³ (99 cubic inch), additional internal changes boosting power to 90 HP, top speed now a heady 106 mph (170 km/h) and to mark the change, the factory designated the 1622-equipped cars as MGA Mark II, production of which ran to 8,719 (8,198 roadsters and 521 coupés).

The other MGA.  Lindsay Lohan in bucket hat with optical disc at MGA Entertainment's (Micro-Games America (1979)) Bratz, 2003 Teen Choice Awards, Universal Amphitheatre, Universal City, California.

Actually, there was also another MGA, the IBM Monochrome Graphics Adapter (1981), the original PC graphics display which transformed the lives of the spreadsheet jockeys who were starting to live their lives inside the Lotus 1-2-3 environment.  What MGA meant was these number-crunching nerds could now see their digits on one screen and their charts on another, something which in the 2020s sounds routine but in the early days of Ronald Reagan's (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989) administration, was a revolution in the accounting profession.  The dual-monitor thing would go mainstream in the next century but MGA came first and the trend to two screens among accountants was paused only with the release in 1982 of the HGC (Hercules Graphics Card) which supported a simultaneous display of text and graphics.  After MGA, IBM continued to define  video standards with the release of EGA (Enhanced Graphics Array, 1984) and VGA (Video Graphics Array, 1987) but at that point things fragmented, third party suppliers developing their own specifications for SVGA (Super VGA) and IBM's subsequent releases such as XGA (eXtended Graphics Array, 1990) never became universal.  VGA (640 x 480) remains the in-built default used as a LCD (lowest common denominator) by many manufacturers of laptops and desktops, systems able to display in this resolution even in the absence of a driver appropriate for a monitor or video card.    

MGA Twin Cam (1958-1960, 2111 built).

1959 MGA Twin Cam Roadster.

In the English way of things, the most famous and celebrated of the MGAs is the least successful and the one at the time damned a failure.  The first MG since the OHC PB in 1936 not to use an OHV power-plant, the DOHC Twin Cam used an engine not fitted to any other car and in that sense of uniqueness ranks with the Triumph Stag in the annals of British engineering failures although the MG's problems were at least (sort of) excusable given the analytical tools of the time and, as ultimately transpired, easily fixable, unlike Triumph’s tragically flawed V8.  Although not used in the production MGA Twin Cam until 1958, the DOHC engine had enjoyed a long development, the basic design completed in 1954 and two prototype versions were in 1955 fielded for the RAC Tourist Trophy in Ulster; while on that occasion not successful, the factory wasn’t deterred, refining the concept and using them to set world speed records in various classes in 1956 & 1957.  Critically however, most development work was in high-speed competition rather than the conditions under which most motorists operate their cars on public roads.  Using the 1588 cm³ block, the DOHC “B” series was in the then classic mold of small-displacement European high-performance engines: an aluminum cross-flow, DOHC cylinder head operating valves angled at 80^o in hemispherical combustion chambers with a high compression ratio.  Twin 1¾ inch SU carburetors fed the induction while, on the opposing side, an imposing exhaust manifold boasted separate downpipes for each cylinder.  The impressive specification yielded a healthy 108 HP @ 6700 rpm and top speed was rated at 113 mph (180 km/h), testers reporting sparkling acceleration at all but the lowest speeds.  Cognizant of the pace, the factory fitted disc brakes on all four wheels and this time, wire wheels weren’t even optional, the required Dunlop Road Speed tyres suitable only for the ventilated Dunlop centre-lock disc wheels.  Radically different though it was under the skin, there were few visual differences to distinguish the Twin Cam from its more mundane cousins, an approach Mercedes-Benz would later adopt for its 300 SEL 6.3 (W109, 1968-1972) and 450 SEL 6.9 (W116, 1975-1981) Q-ships.  Only the purposeful wheels, discreet Twin Cam badges and some details changes to the interior (including a tachometer and speedometer that accommodated the higher limits) provided the external visual clues.

1959 MG Twin Cam FHC.

Like the Stag, the Twin Cam attracted praise upon release and, like the Stag, the reliability issues soon surfaced.  Reports emerged first of excessive oil consumption which fouled spark plugs and the factory experimented with several variations of piston rings before settling on the replacement of the top chrome ring with one of cast iron and a scraper with an expansion ring; these changes resulted in normal oil consumption.  What was not solved until the Twin Cam had been discontinued was what ruined its reputation and doomed the engine: the propensity to burn holes in the top of pistons #3 or #4.  Applying conventional wisdom, the factory first retarded the ignition timing, then, assuming owners were (contrary to operating instructions) using cheaper, lower octane petrol, lowered the compression ratio from 9.9:1 to 8.3:1, both changes reducing power in the quest for reliability, a trade-off well-known to engineers.  The sacrifice however failed to solve the problem and pistons continue to fail.  What baffled the engineers was they were unable to replicate the issue in their tests, even under sustained and extreme loadings.  Their tests however, while imposing demands beyond what any road car would be subjected to, were performed usually in a workshop, on a static test-bed.  By mid 1959, the factory gave up and the Twin Cam was withdrawn from sale, the engineers not discovering the cause until 1960 and those findings they chose not to publicize.  Later, amateurs would trace the problem to resonant vibration which, under conditions encountered when actually driving (as opposed to what happens under extreme load on a test-bed), at certain engine speeds, the SU carburetors would suffer foaming of the fuel in the float chamber which caused the fuel/air mixture to run lean, greatly increasing the heat in the combustion chamber causing the aluminum pistons to begin to melt.  The solution was no more complex than the insertion of flexible, vibration isolating mounts between the intake manifold and carburetors.  It would have been a cheap and simple fix.

1959 MGA Twin Cam FHC.  Whatever the flaws in implementation, the DOHC engine had a classic look.

In 1960, MG's engineers had reached the same conclusion.  After disassembling several engines, they noted the balance of the units was well below the levels of precision they had specified as a result of testing the prototypes, the production engines exhibiting two periods of natural vibration around 3200 and 5600 rpm.  With the stock gearing (fitted to most Twin Cams), 3200 rpm coincided with what were then typical highway cruising speeds.  So, they returned to the test bed and, instead of pushing the engines beyond their limit, instead ran them to the point of vibration and found the float on the rear carburetor would hang on its spindle and not drop, inducing a lean mixture which burned holes in either #3 or #4 piston.  In minutes they improvised a flexible mounting using nothing more exotic than some thin sheet-rubber but the solution came too late, the discontinued Twin Cam’s reputation too sullied for a revival.  A decade on, a similar tale would be told of Norton’s lusty 750 Commando Combat.

1962 MGA 1600 Mark II “Deluxe” Roadster.

So only 2,111 Twin Cams were sold (1788 roadsters and 323 coupés).  Making the best of a bad situation, the factory used the residual stockpile of Twin Cam bits and pieces (other than the engine) and created some up-graded models often referred to as the “DeLuxe” and while MG never formerly applied the designation, shameless dealers advertised them as the “Deluxe”, "De Luxe” or De-Luxe”.  Production was limited by the availability of parts and only 82 1600s were built (70 roadsters and 12 coupés), along with 313 of the upgraded Mk II 1622 (290 roadsters and 23 coupés).  Except for the Dunlop wheels and four wheel disc brakes, there was no universal specification, some using a genuine Twin Cam chassis, some with the “hybrid” competition shell and a mix of other options while many were essentially standard MGAs differing only in the wheels and brakes.  Because of the rarity and upgraded specification, the “Deluxe” models are now second only to the Twin Cam in desirability and, all else being equal, the more "gear" that's fitted, the more collectable the specimen.

1962 MGA Deluxe Mark II roadster with "side screens" fitted (they were a considerable advance on the dreaded, flexible "side curtains").

What came to be called the “MGA Deluxe” was first advertised as “MGA with Competition Suspension option” (described in the factory parts books also as “All Round Disc Brakes model” or “All Wheel Disk Brakes model”) and that was reasonable because the configuration of those first built used the Twin Cam chassis but fitted with an OHV engine.  The platform did however have to be modified so the combination of the Twin Cam type master cylinders and the OHV style radiator and heater unit could both be fitted, thus the variations in the shape of the heater shelf and the radiator mounting.  As a quirk, an uncertain number of the very early–build “Deluxe” models included the removable vent panels in the front inner wings, presumably only those produced before residual Twin Cam stock was absorbed.  Production of the roadster & coupé versions proceeded over two years, during which the 1600 Mark II was introduced and many included some or all of an extensive range of equipment including the Road Speed tyres, “competition seats”, close ratio gearbox, radio, badge bar (then a big thing in England) and some of the roadsters had a bolt-on hard-top (the desirable aluminium unit by Vanden Plas and, when stocks of those were exhausted, the fibreglass version).

1962 MGA Deluxe Mark II roadster with the much admired aluminum hard-top by Vanden Plas.

All the “Deluxe” run included the oil cooler and anti-sway bar so, considering the higher level specification and price, “Deluxe” was as good a name as any and for those who prefer the rarest of anything, with only 35 of the build being coupés, that model was the MGA with the lowest build number.  The 395 "Deluxes" came at the end of MGA production, the last of both the standard and “Deluxe” editions leaving the line in June 1962 and that 395 were built was a product of the Twin Cam venture prematurely being aborted.  According to the factory’s records, MG contracted with Dunlop for the supply of at least 2,500 “kits” containing the wheels and disc brake apparatuses so when the Twin Cam was dropped there were some 400 kits in the warehouse; the “Deluxe” model was concocted just to absorb these parts and thus recoup the cost.  Presumably MG must have had more parts on hand because some would have been retained as spares but definitely the “Deluxe” was a “model of necessity” and other manufacturers later would use the same trick.