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Mg Classic CarsThe first really important racing success was at Brooklands in the Double Twelve Hour Race in May, 1930, where the Midgets captured team prize and defeated their rivals, the Austin team. Fired up by the victory the Abingdon men decided to take the International Class H record, then held by Austin with 84 mph. They chose the EX120, a prototype model, and redesigned it completely. When the car was in running shape a private test was arranged. With the Brooklands track closed for the winter, the MG crew, led by Captain George Eyston, gathered on a strip of public highway outside Newmarket. In the foggy dawn they quietly unloaded EX120 from the truck and prepared the car for the run. Like saboteurs on a secret mission they watched for the police, who would have jailed the lot of them.
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Mg Classic CarsWhen their muffled, surreptitious preparations were done, Eyston made a spectacular entrance. Disdainful of the police, he arrived, gleaming in the early sunlight with white coveralls, white helmet, white gloves - a beacon that could be seen for miles. After a set of railroad crossing gates were illegally lifted, the test run was made. Eighty-seven mph! In December of 1930, the little car made it official at Montlhery, France, then raised it at Brooklands in March to 97 mph.
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Mg Classic CarsBut Eyston was dissatisfied. He wanted to crack the magic 100 mph figure for the flying mile. With an engine of only 743 cc. such a record would stand for years. The attempt was made at Montlhery in the summer of 1931. It was successful. Eyston drove to a record of 101 mph. and then figured in an incident that would have mystified Sherlock Holmes.
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Mg Classic CarsAfter finishing the record run he swung around the track for an extra lap. As he drove out of sight of the pits, the crew heard the engine cut out. They piled into their truck and raced around the bend. There was EX120 in flames! Only seconds remained in which to save the driver. The crew knew that the big-framed Eyston could not remove himself from the tightly fitting cockpit! With frantic haste they crowbarred the side panels off. The seat was empty! A desperate search of the track revealed nothing - no driver!
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Mg Classic CarsEyston himself later supplied the answers. On that last lap he discovered smoke and flames rising at his feet. Slowing the car to 60 he managed, with that last ditch strength of desperation, to jump from the car. A moment later a Frenchman, testing his Citroen, found the unconscious Eystron, put him in his car and drove across the fields to the Montlhery hospital. There the anxious MG crew found him, quietly recuperating from his bruises, not at all concerned about his phantom disappearance. This ended the saga of EX 120.
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Mg Classic CarsBefore the dust raised by EX120 could settle, EX127 appeared - the Magic Midget. Sporting an aerodynamically streamlined body, it also featured a venturi type windshield, which sucked the oncoming air up between two parallel sheets of glass. The driver actually viewed the track through an open slot, but a test with a mechanic sitting on the bonnet, throwing confetti at the windshield, proved that nothing would get through. EX 127 raised the record to 120 mph. Then Bobby Kohlrausch of Germany bought it, installed the new Q-Type engine, ran the machine to a new record of 130 mph and followed that with a screaming 140 mph on the Frankfurt Autobahn. At that point, perhaps under Hitler's orders, the car was acquired by Mercedes-Benz.
