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 It is with regret we have to inform you of the sad passing of Brian Griffin. Brian passed away in Cheltenham Hospital during the early hours of Sunday 5th January after a short illness. Over the years Brian’s contribution to the British Car Industry, especially the MG marque has been truly enormous. Brian’s career began in 1960 with the British Motor Corporation where he served a five-year apprenticeship at Longbridge, during a time when the structure of the British Motor Industry was undergoing radical changes. One of the major changes was that BMC had bought Jaguar, to form British Motor Holdings. The immediate knock-on effect of the creation of BMH was the cancellation of a new sports car powered by a 4 litre Rolls Royce engine. One of the men involved in ‘Project Fireball’, which was targeted at Jaguar’s E-Type was a young apprentice called Brian Griffin. Thirty years on Brian was still involved with BMH and would play a pivotal role in MG’s revival.
The task for Rover to design a production MG fifteen years after the last MGB left Abingdon must have been huge, the Rover bosses finally decided on the PR3 concept, the mid-engined sports car route. Brian, who had worked on the K series engined Metro, was so instrumental in the PR3/MGF project he was appointed project leader in 1991 and given the task of developing the concept feasibility and programme viability through to final board approval before handing over to Nick Fell, who took over as project director, at the end of 1992.
While Brian stayed close to the MGF project, he became the vehicle integration leader on the new Mini until the  BMW/Rover divorce. Brian stayed at MG Rover, reuniting himself with Nick Stephenson who was one of the driving forces in the renaissance of the MG brand. Initially as Chief Engineer in vehicle engineering, when the Motorsport programmes started to formulate he was appointed Manager of Motorsport by Rob Oldaker, managing Director of MG Sport & Racing. One of MG Sport & Racing’s main tasks was handling all competition, so Brian was heavily involved in the 2001/2002 assault on Le Mans with EX 264; he was always there in the pits and never missed a session. As well as Le Mans, MG Sport and Racing ran cars in the junior World Rally Championship and supported BTCC teams, all under the MG XPower branding.
Brian was a natural choice for the Sport and Racing team, becoming involved with driver and team selection as well as forging competition links at club level with the MGCC. In 2004, MG Sport and Racing ran a 5 Car team on the Lombard RAC Revival Rally. One of the drivers, Anthony Reid, said “it was a great event masterminded by Brian throughout, both in the planning and hands on during the event, that’s the kind of guy he was”.
After the closure of MG Rover, and later MG Sport and Racing, Brian remained active around the MG scene and with his wife Marion, ran their own business, X Power Products. He always had a smile on his face and time to talk.
So many times Brian has made the seemingly impossible happen for MG and he will be greatly missed by all who knew him. We send our condolences to Marion and family.
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