MG's Twin-Cam engine

The Twin-Cam engine arrived in 1958 but was it a success?

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I remember the date so clearly. It was 18 July 1958, the day on which The Autocar (our reference ‘Bible’ in those days) carried a full and very authoritative description of MG’s new twin-overhead-camshaft 1588cc engine. Because I had recently joined the engineering design staff of Jaguar, you can believe me when I say that there was little else for discussion around the drawing boards on that day. Although, and purely by coincidence, I was currently working on detail regarding the installation of the latest 3.8-litre XK engine in the still-secret MkII, it was the builtin-Coventry MG engine which took my attention for much of the day.

Not that it came as much of a surprise to us, you understand, for Coventry’s motor industry was very much of a ‘rumour village’ in those days and we had known of its existence for years. We had first seen a prototype Twin-Cam racing in the 1955 Tourist Trophy. Many of the industry’s characters had changed jobs in the meantime, moving to new positions in the city, so at this time the general consensus was not so much of “will you look at that!” but “what took them so long?”