1970 MG Midget - 5 Speed
£6250
Please click HERE to be redirected to another site containing many close-ups.
This little Midget is quite special to me - I actually owned this car a few years back, for two or three years, but had to sell it on to fund another project. When it came back up for sale recently, I had to have it!
Well, where do I start?! The car had a bare-metal professional restoration to show-standard just before I bought it, back in 2007. Whilst I had the car, it won various shows in the North West, including getting ‘best MG’ at Tatton Park car show in 2007 – having been driven on a 300-mile round trip on the same weekend.
The quality of restoration was clearly fantastic as the car remains in excellent condition. The restoration included a fully rebuilt engine and gearbox, and recon axle. Since then the car has had a Frontline 5-speed gearbox conversion fitted (£2500-worth, I believe!) and various other bits and bobs. Since I sold the car, it’s done around 3000 miles.
Bodily, the car is excellent. The shine from the paint finish is fantastic and the panel gaps are all absolutely beautiful. Door and wing bottoms all appear to be nice and solid, with no evidence of filler at all.
The car starts, runs and drives fantastically. It doesn’t overheat, and oil pressure is just as it should be. It ticks over smoothly and pulls cleanly and briskly. No clunks in the drivetrain and it rides very well indeed. I’d happily set off to Glasgow in it – I have no worries about reliability! Even the heater works very well – in fact, all of the electrics are fully functional and work just as they should.
The car comes complete with spare boot lid, in the correct colour, which has been fitted with a boot rack. I had the spare boot lid painted up so I didn’t have to drill any holes in the original one! Also included is a half-tonneau (hood cover). Of course, it’s getting on for 10 years since the car was restored, so there are some VERY small areas of deterioration, but I mean VERY small. You won’t be disappointed! I buy and sell a lot of Midgets and Sprites, and you will struggle to find a car that’s nicer than this one. If you’re after a truly usable car which is in excellent order, then this is the car for you.
When I sold the car, it had quite a lot of history with it – however, some of this appears to have gone missing. I spent a long time tracking down previous owners – but sadly this info has been lost, although I do have digital copies of the original bill of sale, along with several period photos, and some emails from other owners from the 70s and 80s too. There are bills and receipts for the past 4 or 5 years. I think I also have some digital copies of restoration photos somewhere, too.