Page 26 - Sample pages "Kim: A Biography of M.G. Founder Cecil Kimber" by Jon Pressnell

© DALTON WATSON FINE B
© DALTON WATSON FINE BOOKS © DALTON WATSON FINE BOOKS DALTON WATSON FINE BOOKS TON WATSON FINE B
A catalogue image of the J1 Salonette, in a colour scheme that no doubt had Kimber’s approval. “I always went by his choice of colours entirely in designing a catalogue,” said Harold Connolly to Wilson McComb.
Reggie Tongue of the Oxford University Automobile Club. “I wrote pieces on cars in The Isis. I suppose it was the J2 Midget we tried and I wrote ‘This car might achieve 80mph if you got it on a steep hill, with a strong following wind!’ Cecil Kimber was annoyed and told me I was dishonourable to write such things, after he had kindly lent me the car,” Tongue told John Dugdale.
Leaving aside the J2’s contested maximum speed, the new Midget was an appealing buy, but one not without its generally
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Chapter Nine: Technical Advances but a Marriage in Retreat
acknowledged weaknesses. ‘It was an instant best-seller on looks alone and at £199.10s it deserved to be, while its superb four- speed gearbox with remote control was all the better for having no synchromesh,’ veteran racer and journalist John Bolster would later write1. ‘Though it had only 847cc it was slightly faster than a typical French 1100, but its Achilles heel was its two-bearing crankshaft. If only the owners had realised that, at that price, one
1 ‘Wottle she do, mister?’ in Old Motor, June 1981.