Trying to find the original owner

[Efourie]

Hi,

I recently became the owner of an MG TC (TC8294, XPAG7236) and was hoping to find out more information about the car including the original owner (I’m owner 4 and have the names of owners 2-4 but missing the original). It also has a 30mph light, so I'm thinking it was originally a UK model however it seems to have been on some journey with owner 2 buying the car in the US and owner 3 importing it to Australia. I would also love to know if it was a UK model and then imported to the US or if it was always a US model and during one of the two rebuilds (1990 & 2011) it has been swapped to a 30mph from a second map light.

Thanks very much

[Steve Simmons]

Welcome! Without an original UK plate number it will be tough. If you had that, you could contact the county it was originally registered in to see if they have any info. If it was sold new in the US, I'd say you're out of luck since the records will be long gone, and even if they weren't the DMV wouldn't share it with you.

I searched the TC Motoring Guild records and found one entry on the car from about 15 years ago. The entry states that it was a two owner car at the time. The second owner had it for 30 years. The car was restored around 1990 and in good condition, but needing tires and carpet plus some tuning. It was sold on eBay in April 2011 for $19,710.

[Duncan M]

TC8294 was not originally an EXport to the USA (EXU). There are accurate lists of the EXU cars, and this one is not one of them. TC8294 was built on March 28, 1949 and came with XPAG #7326

[Steve Simmons]

Although, non-EXU cars were imported and sold here.

[Duncan M]

This article--
https://www.corvettemuseum.org/mg-tc-an ... 0privately.

gives the number of MG exported new TC's as 2,000 units, with an additional 1,500 exported by other means. Of those 3,500 the article does not mention that only 494? TC's were actual EXU cars. My understanding is all the other ones imported to the US as new cars were standard home market cars with all the features one would find on cars being sold in Britain. Of course there were many used TC's exported to the US before 1950, also.

Many of the EXU cars were "fixed" by "expert" restorers early on who restored them to Home Market configuration. You still see EXU's pop up for sale with various or numerous EXU items missing.

[Steve Simmons]

Sounds right to me.

[Efourie]

Thanks Steven and Duncan, truly appreciate it. Will read through these articles now. It's a real shame all the records seem to have gone missing or been deleted, as everything from owner 2- is so intact.

[Steve Simmons]

TC Motoring Guild has done some research on the car and this is what we've been able to piece together based on our records and info provided by Elliot. We are reaching out to previous owners to see if we can add more to the story.

Reportedly sold new in the UK. Owned in the 1970's by Jim Sitz of California (listed in TCMG directories in 71-75 and possibly more). Sold to Greg & Wendy Mathews of Carlsbad, California in 1979 (TCMG members 1979-2008).

Mathews listed the car for sale in the August 2009 TCMG newsletter, after moving to South Carolina. Ad stated, "This TC needs some loving care. Probably only 3000 miles put on it over the last 20 years. Engine was gone over by Phil Marino about 15 years ago with $5000 of work. However engine does experience some overheating. Suspect radiator but not sure. Top, tonneau and side curtains are really spiffy looking and were done by Joe Namnam. Rest of the car looks, well like a driver." Mathews then listed it on eBay in April 2011. Sold for $19,710. Ad stated: "2-owner car (last one for 30 years) in good condition - restored about 1990. Needs tires and carpet, tuneup." The two-owner claim is in question, as Jim Stitz said he owned the car "back in the 70's" which along with the report of being sold new in the UK, suggests at least 3 owners at that point. The eBay sale by Mathews was to someone in Australia.

Next known owner Robin Knott of Australia who reported in 2019 it was a fully restored and road registered car. Purchased from him by Elliot Fourie of Australia in 2024.

[Duncan M]

Some of that info sounds like the sort of thing that the TTT2 registry might have contained. That registry had a large number of TC's, along with some interesting (self reported) info on individual cars. Anyone know what happened to that registry?

[Steve Simmons]

No idea, but someone should probably find out before it's lost! The info above came from TCMG records. They have been tracking cars and people for 70 years but the data was scattered all over their archives. We're currently working hard to transfer all that data info an online database that people can use to research TC history, and hoping to have it online and public by the end of this Summer.

I have no idea what kind of info TTT2 has or where it came from, but if they would be willing to share then I would happily volunteer to convert their data and integrate it with this new database, which currently has active records on around 2,350 TCs. We've spent the past year or two on the project and it's nearly complete.

There are other databases out there, two in the UK, one or two in Australia and a couple other smaller ones. Unfortunately the owners of those databases have chosen to keep the information private. The only one willing to share freely was Bob Stein. His list has always been public but had grown too cumbersome to track manually with a word processor. We've spent a lot of time converting and merging his data and ours into the new database.

Hopefully the other ones won't be lost when their owners age out.

[Duncan M]

Steve-
As I recall the TTT2 online registry had info on a couple thousand or more TC's, and the other T-type listed seperately. Some info old and sparse, and many cars that were more recently added by owners, inclluding mine. It included things like pictures, chassis and engine number, original and current colors, location and license plate info, owners name if you wanted to include, roadgoing or restoration status along with an area to add remarks. The info could be changed by the owner if they wanted to change something like "under restoration" to "full roadgoing" or add a picture. I do not recall much in the way of a prior owners area, unless you wanted to put that in the remarks section. A pretty sophisticated online registry.

The I think the online MGCC registry https://www.mgcc.co.uk/t-register/regis ... n-t-types/ mighthave some cross pollination with the TTT2 site because the MGCC registry lists my license plate into, which I am pretty sure was only ever given to the TTT2 site.

[Steve Simmons]

The TCMG database has all that info as well. We have the ability to allow owners to edit info, but the problem is that data gets lost and mixed up that way. Imagine an owner buys a new TC, knowing nothing about them, so he/she edits the info by wiping out all the previous history and enters their own info. For that reason, we plan to let people submit edits and additions but not have direct access to the database to make changes.

Images of the cars will be allowed, but only a hundred or so currently have them. The photos don't really serve much historical purpose unless you allow unlimited images, and that can become a mess really fast! (as well as consume terabytes of server space) We haven't decided on the final setup for that yet.

If TTT2's info was in an actual database, which is sound like it was, the conversion would be relatively straight forward. That would be good, because we have hundreds of hours over the past few months converting and merging Bob's info.

[Norman Tuck]

Thank you, Steve S., for the tremendous efforts you put forth, daily, for us.