When a customer purchased a car from MG, they were offered 1 year free membership to The MG Car Club. This club was set up and funded by MG. They even provided office space for its Editor. In 1935 the MG Car Club started producing a monthly magazine called “The Sports Car”. This contained articles and adverts about MG cars specifically written for their owners. At the rear of the magazine was a Classified section which listed the cars for sale in MG model order. What was unusual was that these adverts also included the chassis number for the vehicle.
Our Registrar, Gary Perry, wanted to add all of this SVW advert information to our database, so he placed an advert in Safety Fast asking if any members had a set for sale. Gordon Vogtherr from New Zealand contacted Gary to advise that he had a complete bound set of these rare publication. John Bannister agreed to meet up with Gordon in New Zealand and due to the generosity of Gordon, an amicable deal was reached.
Jim Andrews and John Bannister devoted considerable time reviewing, scanning and cataloguing all articles of interest to SVW owners. Jim then produced a full listing of all material cross-referenced by registration and chassis number, an extract of which was published in Review 27. The SVW Register have subsequently donated the whole set of the magazines to the MG Car Club Archive held at Kimber House.
See the links below to view the complete index of articles or download a searchable MS Excel version:
