The little subtleties - or the special naming tricks of the British
08/09/2017
Yesterday a reader admonished us for repeatedly using the wrong vehicle designations. It is called "MGB" and not "MG B", although of course you can read that again and again. The man is right, of course, because if you look at the vehicle type designations on the rear of the cars or in the brochures," MG" and "B" are always written together, not separately.
Now at Zwischengas we like to think in terms of brands (Morris Garage, M.G. or MG) and types (Midget, A, B, C, F, Metro, Magnette), in other words in a logical structure.
The people at MG saw things a little differently at the time and they placed the MG logo with the octagon next to or between the type designation MGB GT. Of course, nobody said "MGB MG GT" or "MG MGB GT", the logo was simply seen as an additional embellishment. But nobody wrote "MG B" either, except perhaps the German Leyland importer in 1973, who placed an advertisement in the ADAC-Motorwelt. Which was probably an oversight, but shows that the special MG nomenclature was not easy for everyone even then.
Somehow we thought we could live with this logical simplification (you could also call it streamlining) to brand=MG and type=B, but perhaps we are annoying many of our readers? If this is the case, just let us know.
P.S. An additional comment that we also received from the critic who was concerned about subtleties. He explained that it was called "Ford Cortina Lotus" and not "Ford Lotus Cortina", "Jaguar XKE" and not "Jaguar E-Type", as well as "Austin-Healey 3000" and not "Austin-Healey 3000 Mk1", as this addition was only used from MkII onwards ... We had to stick to the designations used by the manufacturer at the time.
P.S.2 While we're at it, let's talk about the Dino 246 GT/GTS. Auction houses tend to call the car "Ferrari Dino 246 GT/GTS". In fact, however, there was a separate brand, set up specifically for the six-cylinder cars (and later also for the 308 GT4), even with separate sales. Here we remain true to ourselves and always call the car the Dino 246 GT, except when we overlook it ...
