MG EX181
Car of the Day #178: 1957 MG EX181 – The Roaring Raindrop
When the Bugatti Veyron reset speed records, this 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder, supercharged MG was one of the cars it had to best over the ‘flying mile’.
Sixteen cylinders and four turbos doesn’t seem as impressive to me, knowing there’s a tiny antique British suppository out there capable of tripping timing beams within a few MPH of the big bad Bug.
If you go far enough back into the history of Morris Garages, the now Chinese-owned ex-British carmaker, you’d find a story of how it topped 200 mph multiple times in an insanely ambitious streamlined land speed record car.
This aluminum spaceship is built around its 1.5-litre twin cam engine.
You know, that super impressive engine in the MGA — the MGA is that tiny British sports car in your town that’s never running properly.
With the magic of chemical engineering taking root in society, the EX181’s fuel must have seemed like a wonder: it was an engineered — and very toxic — mix of methanol, nitrobenzene, acetone, and sulphuric ether.
There was a Shorrocks eccentric vane supercharger bolted on to take advantage of the more potent fuel, along with other hot rod tricks. With 290 horsepower at 7,000 rpm, the car hit 227 mph in 1957 at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Shit, I almost forgot: the drivers.
Future Sir, Stirling Moss, was its record-setting star pilot — before the reins were handed to America’s first Formula 1 World Champion, Phil Hill.
American Phil Hill with the car • via MG
Remember when I said that the EX181 was built around its engine?
I meant that literally. A block sitting smack dab in the middle of the chassis meant that poor 'ol Moss was left to drive with his feet dangling in front of the front tires, with a coffee mug’s worth of ground clearance beneath his heels and just 50 mm (2 inches) between the pedals and front bodywork.
MG returned to the ‘Flats two years later in 1959 with an uprated engine — now 300 horsepower — and then-Ferrari F1 driver Phil Hill. A new record was set for the flying Mile at 410 km/h (254 mph).
If you watch the British Pathé video below, you'll see that Phil Hill was also around for the earlier 1957 attempt — and was referred to by the narrator as “an American driver” without saying his name.
