Background
The origins of the MGC can be traced back not to Abington – upon – Thames but to the fair town of Warwick. More specifically to the Cape Works of the Donald Healey Motor Company. By the mid 1960’s Healey was looking for a prestigious replacement for the Austin-Healey 3000, and he wanted one that would especially appeal to the critical North American market. Mindful that the Americans preferred powerful and torquey boulevard cruisers to stripped out, highly strung point to point racers Healey formed a plan. He would widen the 3000’s chassis and drop in a Rolls-Royce 4-litre straight six engine. BMC had already committed to buy this engine in bulk for the Princess Vandan Plas and Healey’s idea would help them hit their agreed quotas. The idea got as far as three prototypes being built before the new US vehicle safety standards of 1966 put paid to what would have become……the Healey 4000.
Although thwarted in this instance the episode set hares running in the BMC boardroom. The MGB was a unibody design and, thus, better able to meet the upcoming US legislation changes. Why not put a bigger engine in that to create a fast and dirty successor to the Healey 3000 that Americans might like? Hmmm. For speed and cost considerations the new Healey (in an MG body) would continue to use the BMC C-Series straight six engine of the existing Big Healey. But not before it underwent a thorough make over. Chief amongst the changes was the move from a somewhat limiting four bearing bottom end to a seven bearing one. Intake profiles were tinkered with, too, to improve breathing and the beefy straight six was put on a diet to include more use of aluminium and alloys of various types. The front suspension required a compete redesign, too, to help accommodate a heavier, more forward biased C-Series lump.
Donald Healey was introduced to the car pre-launch as the straight-six MG was intended to be marketed as the Austin-Healey 3000 MKIV. Suffice to say Healey didn’t like it and vetoed the use of the Healey name. And so the new car arrived as the MGC in 1967 to a somewhat mixed reaction from the press. The press cars had somehow gone out with just 24psi of pressure in their front tyres – around 12 psi short of optimal – which severely exaggerated understeer. The C never quite hit its stride after that with some conspiracy theorists suggesting a conglomerate that now included Triumph intentionally held back the C for fear of impacting TR6 sales. The C was built for just two years with a total of 9,002 being built. This was split almost equally between GTs (4,458) and rag tops (4,544) making the C a very rare variant of a generally ubiquitous classic lineage.
