The TC was the car that took MG to the world, and it changed less during its four-year life than the TD or TF did during theirs. There were no model years and no separate competition version, so dating a TC rests on the chassis and engine numbers, the export specification, and a handful of running changes. This page sets out what is well-attested, and is deliberately cautious where the record is thin. For anything car-specific, use the official record described near the end. Corrections from owners are welcome.
What was new over the TB (1945)
Announced in the autumn of 1945, the TC was the first MG of the post-war years and, in engineering terms, a lightly revised TB. It kept the 1,250 cc XPAG engine, the four-speed gearbox with synchromesh on the upper three ratios, the beam front axle, half-elliptic springs all round and 19-inch centre-lock wire wheels. The visible change was the body: the tub was widened by about four inches, which gave more elbow room and wider doors, and the running boards and wings were adjusted to suit. Underneath, sliding trunnion spring mountings replaced the TB's shackles at the rear. The TC was built in right-hand drive only, throughout production, without exception, which is why so many of the cars now in the United States are right-hand-drive imports rather than factory left-hand-drive machines.
The EXU export specification (from 1947)
The most useful dividing line in TC production is not a mechanical one but a market one. Cars built to North American specification carry EXU in the factory record, and were equipped for that market with items such as sealed-beam headlamps, twin windscreen wipers and, on many cars, different lighting and instrument details. An EXU car is still a right-hand-drive TC; the designation covers equipment and destination, not a change of steering side. If a car is described as an EXU, that should be visible on its Heritage Certificate, which is the only reliable confirmation. Exactly which fittings applied to which batches varied, and published lists disagree in places, so treat any component checklist as a guide rather than a rule.
The XPAG through TC production
The engine kept the XPAG designation with no prefix change of the kind the TD later received, so the block and head themselves are the better guide to where a car sits. During the TC years the XPAG moved from the early type with the distinctive curved “banana” water passage to the later round-passage block and head, and there were internal detail changes to bearings, oil feed and the water pump along the way. The full description of those blocks and heads, and how to tell them apart, is on the XPAG engine page. Because engines were freely exchanged in service, an early block in a late car proves very little on its own.
Detail changes and how much to trust them
Owners commonly point to differences in the instrument faces and their lettering, in the maker's and patent plates on the bulkhead, in the pattern of the dampers, in seat and trim materials as post-war supply improved, and in the finish of small brightwork items that were painted during the leanest years and chromed later. All of those differences are real. What is not reliable is a precise chassis number for each of them. The factory used up stock as it came, several changes were phased in over a period rather than made overnight, and a great many TCs have been restored more than once. So the sensible way to use detail evidence is as corroboration of a date established from the numbers and the certificate, never as a substitute for it.
Numbers and records
TC chassis numbers run in a single unprefixed sequence beginning at TC0251, and the car number on the bulkhead plate should match the number stamped on the near-side dumb-iron. Roughly 10,000 cars were built between 1945 and the end of production in 1949, and an unusually high proportion survive. Where the numbers are, what the prefixes mean and how to read a guarantee plate are covered in the chassis and engine number guide, and the build totals by year are on the production records page. For a specific car, the definitive sources are its Heritage Certificate and the T Register production records.
The end of the line, and the TD
TC production ended late in 1949, by which time the beam-axle chassis and 19-inch wires were plainly of an earlier era and the American dealers who had made the car a success were asking for something more comfortable. The answer was the TD, a very different car under a familiar skin: independent front suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, pressed-steel disc wheels and left-hand drive from the start. That story is set out in the TD production changes.
Read next
Model references: MG TC, MG TB and MG TD. See also the XPAG engine, the chassis and engine number decoder, MG TD production changes, MG TF production changes, and the ash frame. Corrections and additions from owners are welcome.