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StarLight Garage presents her 150th car suggestion and another big milestone for the GT-series Garage.
First of all I want to thank everyone who has voted for my suggestions, I only did the suggestion but you are the one who make it happen!
The car I want introduce today is the MG Special or MG Canelas, the MG what?
Yes, the MG Special aka MG Canelas is a very rare Portuguese car and many Portuguese doesn't know either the existence of the car.
A racing classic car made in Portugal, also known as the Portuguese Ferrari.
This one-off MG was built in Portugal in 1954 bij a Portuguese mechanical engineer José Jorge Canelas.
Canelas used a MG TC (1952) a pre war car from the Morris Garage for the hill-climb in Portugal (1952). The MG TC had only three synchronized gears, hydraulic brakes and a top speed of 125 km/h.
Unhappy with the MG TC performance, Canelas initiated a bunch of changes which result was a total new car and only the chassis survived.
For the design of the new body he got the assistance of his colleague Antonio Andrade, also a mechanical engineer who liked to delineate new cars.
After a while even the original chassis (# 2949) did not correspond to their wishes and a new tubular chassis began to take shape in a improvised garage in Lisbon.
Canelas new chassis used steel tubes in chrome-molybdenum which where welded at the General Aeronautical Material Workshops.
After contemplated and studied the air intakes for cooling the front and rear brakes. Further they placed a tunnel at the right front fender for the engine air admission.
When the car was finished, it was a total different car form the original, the car was lower, elegant and very original. Dennis Jenkinson would later dedicate an article in Motorsport and considered the MG Especial as an example of high engineering and quality automobile.
Three years later Ferrari would present their new Ferrari Testa Rossa (1957), which looks a lot to the MG Special and so the Portuguese Ferrari was born. See it for yourself in the pictures below.
Specifications
Engine: 4 cylinder 1500 cc
Power: 95 hp
Transmission: 4 manual
Top speed: 195 km/h
Weight: 550 kg
THE OTHER MGS ARE HERE
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