Page 29 - Sample pages "Kim: A Biography of M.G. Founder Cecil Kimber" by Jon Pressnell

good.’ I don’t think he ever counted the cost. I once said to him ‘These cost a packet, don’t they?’ He said ‘Price of a couple of door- handles, that’s all. If they sell the car it’s worth it. Remember, the catalogue is the salesman that goes home with you.’
“He always asked me what I thought, but I don’t say I influenced him in any way – if he liked it that way it stayed that way, and you could talk till you were blue in the face; he’d just dig his heels in. He liked to have a pretty girl in his cars, and a touch of the country house or a college background. I couldn’t draw girls as pretty as I’d have liked, but I did my best. Kimber said he liked my drawing because the cars looked as if they were made of metal – the air- brush drawings of those days made cars look like silk stockings. He didn’t think much of my figure work, but it was getting better, he said; he was frank like that...”
Publicity manager George Tuck recalled to Norman Ewing how Kimber steered operations. “I can tell you he was very particular about those catalogues; he knew what he wanted, both finished product and the colours to be used, and he wanted the cars to
The team of C-type Midgets entered by Goldie Gardner (left, with stick) for the 1932 Ulster TT; to Gardner’s left is M.G. mechanic Reg Jackson, reserve driver Cyril Paul (with pipe) is standing by car 31 (for Randolph Jeffress), and far
right (by number 30, the Hamilton car)
is further reserve driver Stanley Barnes. (Goldie Gardner courtesy Mike Jones)
look solid and have substance and look from the drawings like they could go. I used to pay Harold Connolly five guineas for his drawings.”
Tuck remembered that he had “a very modest budget, which Kim always exceeded on my behalf!” The brief came from Kimber, with an indication of the slant he wanted it to take. “Kim was very interested in all the advertising, and was adamant that any motoring promotional matter had to have some sort of objective...”
Although Kimber was prepared to spend what it took to achieve effective advertising, he didn’t allow himself to be swept away by the extravagancies of London’s advertising whizz-kids, said Tuck. “I remember one time some people sent these girls down to sit gracefully on the bonnets, but it looked very artificial and Kim never liked those shots; it was Kim who said ‘What are you messing about at? I’m sure we should do better if we got George Propert’s daughter to come and do a bit of modelling.’ We tried it and from that moment on she featured in most of our publicity matter and very successfully, too.”
203 Chapter Nine: Technical Advances but a Marriage in Retreat
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