This is a guide to what a correct, original MG TC should have, area by area. The TC is the last of the traditional, pre-war-style Midgets, and much of what is correct for it is the opposite of what is correct for the TD and TF that followed, so it repays its own guide. For reading a car's numbers, see the chassis and engine number guide. The usual caution applies: these cars were hand-built and have been restored for seventy years, so treat this as the general picture and check specifics against the car's BMIHT Heritage Certificate and the T Register's registrar.
Right-hand drive only
The most clear-cut originality fact about the TC is also the simplest: every one was built in right-hand drive. Unlike the TD that followed, MG never made a factory left-hand-drive TC, even though thousands were sold in the United States, where returning servicemen had discovered the car. A TC converted to left-hand drive is exactly that, a conversion, and not original. This single point settles a surprising number of questions.
The engine: the XPAG
A correct TC has the 1,250 cc XPAG with twin SU carburettors, giving around 54 bhp, the same basic unit as the later cars but in its earlier form. The earliest engines are of the “banana” type, with banana-shaped water passages, before the change to round water holes described on the XPAG engine page. As ever, the engine may not be original after seventy years; the prefixes and number locations are covered in the chassis and engine number guide.
Wheels and tyres
Here the TC is the opposite of the TD. A correct TC rides on 19-inch centre-lock wire wheels with knock-off hubs, not the bolt-on disc wheels of the TD, and originally on crossply tyres. Wire wheels are right for the TC and wrong for the TD, which catches people out, so on a TC the wire wheels, their knock-off spinners and the tyre type are what a correct car carries.
Chassis, axles and steering
The TC keeps the traditional layout that the TD would sweep away. It has a beam front axle, half-elliptic leaf springs front and rear, and cam steering rather than the rack-and-pinion of the TD, with lever-arm dampers. The ride is firmer and more vintage in feel, and that is correct; a TC should not have independent front suspension or rack-and-pinion steering, which belong to the TD onward.
Body, tank and details
The TC carries the classic details of the breed: cutaway doors, running boards, a fold-flat windscreen, and a slab-style fuel tank at the rear with the spare wheel mounted on it. The slatted grille wears the octagon badge, and the lamps and brightwork follow the pre-war pattern. These are the features that give the TC its silhouette, and a correct car has them right.
The dashboard and instruments
The TC dashboard carries Smiths instruments in the MG octagonal theme, arranged in the pre-war manner, with the correct switches and controls. Reproduction instruments exist, so the dial faces, bezels and lettering are worth checking against known-correct examples.
Seats, trim and interior
The TC was trimmed in leather over a bench-style seat, with the door trims, cappings and carpet to the correct pattern and colour for the car's trim code. Interiors are often retrimmed, so a correct one matches what the factory fitted, as recorded on the Heritage Certificate.
Electrics
The TC is a 12-volt, positive-earth car with Lucas electrics: the correct dynamo and control box, coil, distributor and wiring pattern. Conversions to negative earth, an alternator or electronic ignition are common improvements but are departures from standard.
Paint and factory colours
The TC was offered in a range of factory colours, and the one correct for a given car is a matter of record, not taste, set down on its Heritage Certificate and encoded on its data plates. Begin from the Heritage Certificate colour, not the colour the car happens to wear now.
What ‘correct’ really means
The same honest close. These cars were hand-built, altered in detail through production and restored for seventy years, so almost none is correct in every particular, and many sensible improvements make a car more usable at the cost of strict originality. None of that makes a car wrong; it makes it a used classic. Originality is a spectrum, and the arbiters of where a car sits are its Heritage Certificate and the T Register's registrar.
Help build this guide
If you own a TC and can photograph its original details, the wire wheels and knock-off hubs, the dashboard, the engine bay, the tank and rear-mounted spare, those photographs would strengthen this reference for every TC owner, and you can add your car to the registry. Corrections and additions are welcome.
Read next
MG TC, the chassis and engine number decoder, the XPAG engine, the ash frame, and the companion originality guides for the TD and the TF 1500. Corrections and additions from owners are welcome.