Description
MG Midget Mk1. Manufactured in the cycle 1962 to 1963 – a successor to the successful 998, and manufactured on the same production line (different badging) as the Austin Healey Sprite. First registered in 1963. Engine size - 1098cc. Bought in December, 2000, to impress my girlfriend, now wife, Car has been in our family ever since. (Came to our wedding in 2005). Car (that’s his name) is a looker, has been the start of many a conversation with strangers, and that is one of the things we love about him – that he makes people smile. He is also a rare car – there are other Mk1s on the roads, but in our twenty-four years of driving him we have never seen one.
We are not tinkerers (wouldn’t know one end of a piston from the other), so the work that we have had done, and there has been a lot, has been done by specialists. To be specific, Hazlemere Bodyshop – its then owner an MG mechanic – brought him up to fine form between 2000 and 2007. From 2007 he briefly became a hobby for my retired father – a mechanic – and when the hobby became too much, we took him back.
He has been our only car since 2010, and since 2014 he has been maintained by Carn Bosavern Garage, St Just – specialists in classic car maintenance and restoration. We will sell him (because we love him) in as good a condition as they can manage. We hope that way that he has many, many years of loved driving to come.
We have never taken him to Scotland, or onto the continent, but we have driven him widely in England, and through Wales and into Ireland. For his first seven years I used to take him daily on a return trip from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, across London to the east end. Since 2014, when we moved to Cornwall, he has become a Cornish car (mostly), loving the windy A-roads on which his cornering, and his 1098 engine thrive.
He does not, by contrast, thrive on a motorway (can’t see the point of them) and probably would not suit a motorway driver. He prefers rather a journey, where the journey itself is part of the pleasure, and where his passengers – sitting low, almost touching the road – can feel every bit of speed he has to offer. (Happiest at 50 to 60mph, will stretch to 70+ when needed, but all of it feels a lot faster.)
We are selling him because we have reached an age when a four-seater classic is needed (can’t fit the mother on a parcel seat). Pricing him is difficult, and to do our pricing we have considered what he would be worth as a museum piece, £15, 000, and what he would be worth as a restoration job, £2, 000. We have pitched him in the middle, Car being a working car, and we think that that is a fair price for him.
He is garaged and well-maintained. He is also used, and is happy to be used on a daily basis. For those who understand these things he comes with a folder thick with all the work that has been done, and if you are serious about having him you will need to commit to working on him, or having work done for as long as he is yours. Prices compared to many other classics are cheap, and parts are easily sourced.
Finally, if you think you can love him (and he is eminently lovable) please make initial contact via email
