Early Days - The Black & White Era

A Page of Photographs from Archives.


The Y Type Register has recently been given access to photographic archives held by the MG Car Club and some of the photo's including Y Types are reproduced here. There are more to come plus interesting photographs from another source.

At the moment all photographs shown here are copyright The MG Car Club except where indicated (particularly the first two) and some of the MGCC items are from the S. Gordon Cobban collection.

If any owners or previous owners of Y Types have early photographs that might be of interest on these pages then please consider sending them to us for inclusion to owne...@mgccyregister.com

If any previous owners of Y Types would like to share their early photo's and perhaps discover the whereabouts of their car now they would also be welcome.

The photographs do not necessarily have to be black & white.

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The above Y's, LBP 535 and MG 7259 are the subject of some interesting anecdotes which can be found by using this LBP 535 & MG 7259 link.

Photo's sent in by Mike Bond showing his two tone green YA in the early 1960's in Southend. It was fitted with twin SU's and tuned by Harry Bailey, a neighbour. Also it was fitted with tubular shock absorbers. "I rallied that car at the De Havilland rallies, and I believe I was in that car, on a rally, when it was announced that President Kennedy had been assassinated. I recall it being a bitterly cold evening, and I think I had the windscreen open to see where I was going, as it was fogging up. ( no heater in my car, or if there was, it didn't heat the windscreen!!).

Greg Castling sent in this photograph via David Pelham of the 1951 YA he owned in the late 1960's. Greg says the photo might be of interest to the current owner. It was taken on the Rhigos mountain road above the Rhondda Valley, Wales. One wonders why the cone lept up in front of the car.

On the left a photo captioned "English and Welsh Distributors Day, 7th May 1947" and on the right the "Scottish Distributors Day, 13th May 1947".

These early photos were kindly supplied by Keith Herkes from his collection. The above photographs Copyright Keith Herkes.

Left are three sequentially registered Y Types used by the MG Rally Team in 1953. HMO 909 is now part of the BMIHT collection at Gaydon and on the right YA HON 30 is competing in the California Cup at Silverstone in 1978. Both photo's are copyright MG Car Club.

On the left Frank Vautier's Y Type is vigorously cornering at an unidentified meeting and on the right S. Gordon Cobban a previous MG Car Club Secretary is competing in the Brighton Rally. Both of these photographs are copyright the MG Car Club being part of the S. Gordon Cobban collection.
On the left an early version of the Y Register present Chairman Peter Vielvoye in his Y bedecked with what looks like pink toilet tissue. A wedding day photo taken by Peters father, and on the right another photo of Peters Y Type with what looks like another Y in the background. Peter owned this car from 1966 to 1969.
Above left is Max Stoop's new toy in 1976, a YT and on the right from Max again is this 1978 photo of two YT's and a Reinbolt & Christe Y chassis with coachbuilt tourer body.
Below left is a picture of Max in front of his YT and on the right are Max Stoop and Sons also in 1981 driving his YT.
Above left is a YA owned by Norwegian Baard Nielsen during an event at Beaulieu and on the right also at Beaulieu is the Y, MWR 777, of Ron Humphris, now in Australia. To the left of MWR 777 is YB UMG 665 currently owned by Geoffrey Wilson.
Both Photographs Copyright the MG Car Club.
The photo of three Y types together : 994 RKT pictured many years ago was for sale in 2010 and therefore probably extant, HSC 999 is believed to have been broken and LPX 595 is believed to be still alive, a recent owner being Karen Shipton. Photo Copyright the MG Car Club.