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OCTAGON? The Origin of the Badge |
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Gerard Somers (memyself-eye)
MG Addict Contributing Writer
One day, in 1966 my father took me to a car show organised by his employer, BMC (British Motor Corporation) at the factory where he worked, in Birmingham England.
His particular factory was the ?Traction and Transmission? division of the - then mighty - car company and produced most of the ?stuff? that goes between the engine and the wheels.
The show wasn?t a big one - only about half a dozen cars were present, but two in particular caught my eye. One was a cute little cream coloured roadster with bug eyed headlamps and no boot (the ?Frogeye? Sprite).
The other, bigger, had a lovely chrome grill and a strange octagon badge.
?What does MG stand for?? I enquired
?More Go? my dad replied ? ?They?re faster than other cars y?know??
I lived quite happily with this misinformation for another ten years until I bought my own ?MoreGo? and started to learn the true story.
MG does of course mean ?Morris Garages? or more precisely ?The Morris Garages Ltd?, the car dealership in Oxford England originally owned by William Morris, whose other business at that time (1919) was a car manufacturing operation, Morris Motors Ltd based at Cowley, a suburb of Oxford.
It was this latter business that would grow to become (together with Herbert Austin in Birmingham) the giant British Motor Corporation, now sadly reduced to MGRover.
In 1919, Morris Garages appointed in new sales manager, Cecil Kimber, who became General Manager in 1921 at the age of 34.
Under Kimber?s direction, Morris Garages accelerated its already established specialisation by selling its? own variation on standard Morris cars and arranged to buy from Morris Motors the twelve horsepower Morris Cowley in chassis form.
They fitted their own body and the resulting two-seater was called The Morris Garages ?Chummy? - so named because when the hood was raised all the occupants were enclosed within it (unlike the rival Austin 7 with an exposed ?dicky? seat in the boot).
At this stage (1923) these ?chummys? were still visibly Morris cars having the traditional ?bull nose? radiator seen on all Morris products at the time.
However in May 1924 the Morris Owner magazine featured, for the first time, the ?MG? initials enclosed within an Octagon - in a Morris Garages advert for the ?MG super sports (the chummy) which, it was proudly proclaimed: ?will climb the famous Porlock Hill at 25 miles per hour?.
In March 1929 the MG Car Company came into being thus ensuring the initials (rather than the full name) became part of motoring history.
There are several stories surrounding the origin of the Octagon shape; one being that Kimber thought it the perfect geometrical shape, another that the desk in his office was that shape and another that the shape was popular in Art Deco designs of the times.
Certainly, the initials ?MG? lend themselves to being enclosed within a box and it may be that the Octagon was simply more interesting than any other shape.
Once the trade mark Octagon symbol was born, it became a source of pride for Kimber that ?MG? cars were differentiated from the parent Morris offerings at every opportunity.
The MG Car Company therefore made the most of the octagon shape and it appeared in many facets of the cars from the shape of the instrument panels on the pre war Magnettes, J, P and T Types to being imprinted in the chassis itself (the 18/80).
The post war cars (A?s B?s & Midgets) had, mostly, to content themselves with an Octagon badge on the nose and one on the boot, as by this time MG had to use standardised round instruments (although I managed to get 31 Octagons on various badges, stickers etc on my own Midget!).
So who owns the Octagon trademark today?
Well, it is owned by MGRover limited, who still manufacture MG?s, but in Birmingham not Abingdon. (in fact the MG version of their small ?25? hatchback outsold the Rover version last month).
It is ironic then, that the famous initials once consigned to the dustbin of history (following the closure of Abingdon) now carry the still uncertain future of the once proud Midlands Motor industry.
Even more ironic that the ?Rover? bit of ?MGRover? is not owned by MGRover, but was retained by BMW when that company was sold by the German car maker back to its management some years ago.
Maybe if they?d been smarter they would have kept the rights to the Octagon instead- but that?s a story for another day!
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