George Phillips FAK57

MG TC ‘George Phillips Le Mans Special’ Replica

First Registration 1947, MG TC ‘George Phillips Le Mans Special’ Replica, «FAK57»

Swiss road registration with « Veteran“ entry

FiA HTP-Papers (Class TSRC3) valid till 31.12.2025

Race entries in Goodwood Revival 2015 and Le Mans Classic 2016

The longstanding chief photographer of “Autosport” magazine, George Phillips, bought a MG TC in 1947 to race it. As a result, however, he was disappointed with the performance. Driven by this, he first had the engine’s performance tuned and thereby got over 100 reliable horsepower out of the 1250 in-line four-cylinder. As a further step to increase the performance of his racing MG, he had Lester build an aluminium body and reduced the weight of the car by a staggering 200kg to a final 600kg. With these extensive modifications, the MG TC was unrecognisable and its performance was simply phenomenal!

George Phillips competed in the following races with one of the most successful racing MG’s to date:

1948 BRDC Manx Cup (4th place)
1948 Ulster Trophy (4th place)
1948 Goodwood Meeting (4th place)
1949 24h Le Mans (disqualified for having a spare ignition coil)
1950 24h Le Mans (2nd place in his class)

The original car was destroyed in an accident so badly that it was presumably scrapped afterwards.

Simon Evans had the idea to revive this legendary racing MG and pursued his plan to get a starting place at the Goodwood Revival with this incredibly detailed replica.

He had this racing car, named the “George Phillips Le Mans Special”, built up by the specialist Phil Cornut in Great Britain. The complete rebuild is based on an original MG TC chassis from 1947 (as was the original at the time) with all contemporary components. This MG TC with the English number “FAK47” had already completed racing events, as contemporary photos document. An enormous amount of research had to be done to ensure a match with the original “Le Mans Special”, with countless historic photos of George Phillips and his modified MG TC being consulted in the process. Well-known specialist Peter Edney built the engine to historic racing specifications, with the priority being reliable rather than absolute top performance. The highly modified engine develops about 100 hp and allows this racing MG to run at over 160 km/h. Simon’s plan therefore worked and his main success was his participations in the Goodwood Revival 2015 and the Le Mans Classic 2016.

This MG TC ‘George Phillips Le Mans Special’ is in an excellent condition and is a one-off sight to be allowed to participate successfully in historic racing events. In recent years, investments of over CHF 75’000 have been made to achieve Swiss road registration for this racing MG and to restore it to a technically as well as visually pristine and breathtakingly beautiful condition.