Geoff Love's surmise on the origin of Magnette sounds improbable to me.
(Sorry, Geoff!) After all the English have never had much time for the
French....
More likely, to my way of thinking, MG first coined the name Magnette to
refer to a smaller, lighter version of the Magna, another model name in
the MG line at that time (early thirties). Then they re-used the name for
the Z, ZB and Farina versions which, of course, weren't smaller or
lighter than anything in the MG range in the fifties, but
that's another story.......
Lawrie
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