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This 1949 MG TC is both rare and beautifully restored
Дата публикации: 19-09-2026 10:00:45

Calgarian with a long history with British sports cars has owned this beauty for 50 years

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This 1949 MG TC is both rare and beautifully restored

Calgarian with a long history with British sports cars has owned this beauty for 50 years

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1949 MG TCAfter restoring several other MGs, Stephen Tayler finally turned his attention to the 1949 TC and completely dismantled the car to the last nut and bolt. Originally a Clipper Blue, Tayler had the body correctly painted and installed a beige interior kit in the right hand drive car. Photo by Stephen Tayler

Nearly 50 years ago, Stephen Tayler purchased his 1949 MG TC. And since 1980, he’s enjoyed every moment of ownership. “I bought the car from Ben Berg, and his son is Alan Berg, the well-known Canadian F1 racer,” Tayler says from his Calgary-area home. “The fenders were off the TC, and the frost plugs were out of the engine. I’m pretty sure Ben imported it from England and had started to take it apart.”

For Tayler, the MG TC was not a difficult project to initially return to the road. His father, Ted Tayler, was a mechanic who once worked at Bert & Jack’s Garage, a British service shop on 17th Avenue in Calgary. The Tayler family had moved to Alberta when Stephen was seven, and he’d grown up watching Ted work on the daily drivers, always British built. Tayler was soon rebuilding a BSA Bantam motorcycle alongside his dad and became familiar with the BSF (British Standard Fine) and Whitworth sockets and wrenches unique to British fasteners. After the BSA, he graduated to a new Honda 90 before acquiring his first MG, a 1972 GT.

1949 MG TC One of the most time consuming aspects of Stephen Tayler’s 1949 MG TC restoration was removing a tar-like undercoating that had been applied in the 1950s when the car was refurbished in England. But, with a freshly restored chassis and body panels finished in Clipper Blue, the TC is now a stunning sports car. Photo by Stephen Tayler

“This ’49 TC is unique in that it had stayed in England from new,” Tayler explains. “After the war, most MG production was exported to the United States, Australia or South Africa.” Although the post war TC looks very similar to the MG TA, which entered production in 1936, Tayler says there are subtle differences. “They looked the same, but MG just made the TC a little bit bigger for the American market,” he says. “And you really have to look to see the difference, as the design didn’t change, they just made it a tad bigger to suit the Americans.”

Tayler figures after eight or 10 years on the road in England, his 1949 TC had required refurbishing. The work would not have been up to restoration standards of today’s MG enthusiasts, least of all Tayler. But the sports car was solid with no rust, and with a little effort, Tayler serviced the running gear, reinstalled pieces such as the front fenders, and put the car on the road. “My wife and I and our young daughter would go out into the country on day drives,” Tayler says of the first 10 years of TC ownership. “Then, I restored a TD, and after I restored that car, I put the TC up around 1990, and it sat unused for quite a few years.”

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Tayler does have several other MGs, all cars he has restored, and the TC simply sat waiting its turn. “Once I retired and I’d finished my TF, the TC was only one I hadn’t totally restored so I thought I’d do it. I stripped it apart down to every nut and bolt, and one of the most difficult jobs was, back when it was restored in the Fifties, they had sprayed the underneath with tar, and I spent countless hours taking that off with solvents and a little bit of heat.”

Conveniently, the TC’s body panels were in relatively good shape and did not require extensive dent repair work. What Tayler did spend time doing was achieving consistent door gaps, and that meant, “A lot of time messing around with the hinges and all sorts of issues until I was happy with it.” Rather than taking all body pieces at one time to the paint shop, Tayler took parts as he had them ready to Crama Coachworks in Sundre. There, the panels were treated to a Clipper Blue finish, which was its original factory colour.

He ensured the frame was straight and sandblasted it. All suspension components were likewise cleaned before Tayler primed and painted them at home using gloss black Tremclad. All fasteners, 99 per cent of which are original to the car, Tayler says, were individually cleaned before being cadmium plated at Wes-Pen industries in Calgary.

As the TC had been a good running car prior to Tayler taking it apart, he simply dismantled the 1,250cc four-cylinder overhead valve engine and inspected every component. Original to the car, the motor and 4-speed gearbox were in good condition, and no major machine work was required, although Tayler did clean and paint everything prior to reassembly. With the body back on the frame and wired with a new Lucas loom, Tayler finished the interior with a complete kit, in beige, and topped it off with a walnut dash his wife bought him many years ago as a Christmas gift.

A period MG brochure claimed the TC was, “responsive and lively, with a ‘character’ all its own.” With several other vintage MGs to drive, for now Tayler is keeping the TC clean and pristine. Eventually, he says, he will again experience the “character” of the TC he has owned for nearly half a century.

Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have a column tip? Contact him at gregwilliams@shaw.ca

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Greg Williams pictureGreg Williams
Greg Williams has long appreciated vintage vehicles, anything with wheels, from bicycles to motorcycles, automobiles to trucks. But he also appreciates new technology, and sharing the experiences of others as they test drive the latest rides. Since 1998, he has been a freelance contributor to Driving.ca. Summary -Writing since 1995, continually contributing to transportation magazines around the world -Enjoys focusing on the people behind the machines, those who build, restore, or engineer them. -Member of (AJAC) the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada since 2001 Education Graduated from Mount Royal College’s Journalism Program in 1995. Supplemented freelance writing income as a driller’s helper, often driving thousands of miles hauling pipe. Continually learning from those involved in all aspects of automobiles and motorcycles. Experience Since 1998, Greg Williams has been writing transportation stories for Driving.ca, starting as a weekly columnist for the Calgary Herald’s Wheels, then Driving sections, and now Driving.ca. Freelance stories featuring motorcycles have been published worldwide but started with a biography of Saskatoon’s J.B. Nicholson in the U.K.’s The Classic Motorcycle magazine in 1996. Constantly tinkering with broken down old motorcycles, the passion led to monthly columns in Inside Motorcycles (1999-2010), and then Cycle Canada (2010-2015). Contributed monthly since 2000 to American Iron Magazine, until that ‘No. 1 Motorcycle Magazine on the Newsstands’ folded in 2020. Writing the bi-monthly Pulp Non-Fiction column for The Antique Motorcycle magazine since 2008, and since 2021, working as Associate Editor with ex-Cycle World editor David Edwards. Also, since 2010, have penned bi-monthly feature contributions to Motorcycle Classics magazine. Continue to semi-regularly contribute feature stories to Canada’s Motorcycle Mojo magazine and have done so since 2015. Joined the team at TheVintagent.com in 2020 as Profiles Editor contributing long-form interviews with a diverse range of interesting people inhabiting the world of antique motorcycles. New vehicle test drives were routinely contributed to the Calgary Herald’s Driving section until 2004, when a motorcycle accident left him a paraplegic. Now, he pens the Reader Reviews and Owner Reviews for Driving.ca, stories where ordinary folks share their thoughts and impressions of new, or new-to-them vehicles. After writing about J.B. (Bernie) Nicholson in 1996, in 2009 Greg wrote the book Prairie Dust, Motorcycles and a Typewriter about Nicholson Bros. Motorcycles, and Bernie’s writing of seven editions of the book Modern Motorcycle Mechanics (1942 to 1974). ( https://modernmotorcyclemechanics.com/). Major awards won by the author 2001 runner-up Castrol-Chinthe Award for Automotive Writing; 2009 Winner Julie Wilkinson Motorsport Writing Award; 2014 Bar & Hedy Hodgson Award Recipient (Canadian Motorcycle Hall of Fame). Contact info Email: gregwilliams@shaw.ca Instagram: Visit here
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