This morning I was able to observe a mint MG Midget. Seeing as several posters here have owned one I'd be real interested to see if they could still get into one??? [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
What year model was that MG Midget? My first showroom new car was a 1962 Austin Healy Sprite, which was actually the same car, just that the MG was a bit flashier; had a chrome grill instead of the stamped aluminum mine had, had more colors in the instrument panel where mine was just black and white, etc. And I suppose I COULD get into one again if I had to, but it wouldn't be easy and I wouldn't really want to try. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
Egon, my 1962 Sprite was the first year that they got away from the bug eyed body style, but I don't even know what years they made the midget or whether they ever had a bug eyed style. Mine was black with a red interior.
The first Midgets were made in 1961 . I had a 1962 which was the first year they had the 1098 cc engine. I could still get in one no problem. They supposedly made em up to 1979 but I don't think I have ever seen one that new.
[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I bought a new MG "Bee" in '67, and a friend bought a new MG Midget. I test drove his midget just once on the flea-way. While zooming along at sixty I looked in the mirror and all I could see was the license plate of a Kenworth that was tailgating me. I decided right then that the word "midget" as applied to cars was something I would try to avoid. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]
Dave, the day I bought the Sprite, a dump truck changed lanes and ran me off the road (North Central Expressway in Dallas), no damage, then a 15 year old kid in a Buick took the grill and left front bumper off in San Antonio. I was working nights and parked on the street in Dallas (parallel parking) and came out two mornings to find someone had backed into the front end of it. Then at a drive-in restaurant, I was following an Oldsmobile one night, leaving the parking lot, but it turned out the Olds driver was drunk. He got the front of his car just into the street, then suddenly shifted to reverse and backed into the front of my Sprite. By that time, I'd had the car about 2 years and I went the next day and traded it in, with the smashed front end, on a new 1964 Dodge Dart convertible. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] Other than getting run over all the time, it was a good little car. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Bird, I don't know if this was true where you were living, but those AH Sprits were raced extensively on sports car courses in a certain class with a rigid set of rules, and it became almost a science to see who could build the ultimate "super cheat" Sprite. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]
Dave, I never drove any Sprites besides my own, but there was a mechanic at the dealership who insisted that I had the fastest stock Sprite he'd seen. He was into racing and wanted me to race, too. In fact, he once offered to let me drive his car in a race if I'd then enter mine in a race (with me driving, not him). But I told him I had to depend on that car to get to and from work; couldn't take a chance putting it on a race track.
Dave I did not get mine untill 1972. I was probably the 4th or 5th owner. The guy I bought it from did not have a clue what it really was. A nifty little wore out convertible. I bought it for a slalom car. Some where along the line someone had cleared and balanced the engine and done other mods i never figured out. It was a 1098 bored 60 over with special pistons, over sized carbs and a head I never did identify. When i rebuilt it i never could find a ring set that that matched up to the pistons. It had rings above and below the wrist pins. I never found the rings for below the wrist pins and just left them off. I ran it for a couple of years all over AZ and close by states until they started disqualifying me at tech inspections for all sorts of petty stuff just to keep me out of the race. It was a really fun car to drive you could just throw it into turns and power slide the corner. I got even with the disqualifications by trading it for a Fiat X 1/9 which ran in the same class and was even faster. I cheated with the Fiat also It was a 1290 cc and I put a head off of an 1100 upping the compression to who knows what and bought a 9000 rpm cam from Italy. It ran like a two stroke moto crosser. No torque at all up to about 5000 rpm and then it just exploded.
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