Members
Martin Evans. MG Midget Register member
for 24 years
The Midget c.1981 was taken before I owned the car (Before I had a driving
licence infact!!), by its second owner. I met him for the first time last
year, at a local classic car event. He was at the event with his present
black 1500, something he promised himself again one day, when he sold mine
all those year ago (That's two people who have sold it because of getting
married!!). I couldn't bring myself to part with the car, so I expect it
to form part of my estate, though hopefully, that is some way off.
I also run a 1974 MGB BT V8 and a 1971 Morris Traveller, appropriately fitted
with a 1275 Midget engine. I have nothing "Modern", the Morris
fulfils the role of runabout, though because I commute almost entirely on
a bicycle, even the Morris spends most of its time parked in the garage
with the others.
My father also has a Midget. His is a nice 1275 GAN 5 in blaze red. He used
to have a V8, which he passed on to me. My mother has a low mileage 1978
MGB GT (We have no modern cars). I am in the MGCC (Plus the Morris Minor
OC!!), my father the Midget & Spite Club and my mother the MGOC. I am
also in the Bugatti Owners' Club, not because I own one (If I had enough
money I'd like one!!) but due to my hillclimbing activities.
Midget 1981 Midget 1994 2005
2008 Nice interior
Thanks Martin for sharing you and the Midget
Members
Mark Boldry. MG Midget Register Technical Rep
My first Spridget (a Mk3 Sprite) I bought at the age of 17 and found it was beyond my capabilities for restoration. (it must have been bad as I built my first car, a 1964 Mini from bits at the age of 15). I scrapped that car and was amazed at the response from the advert in the local paper for the parts. I immediately sourced another in York, a 1964 1098 Midget in Tartan Red with Wire Wheels, this one didn’t escape me, for a while anyway. I did welding repairs where essential and MOT’d the car and had miles and miles of fun with it. I believe the car still exists to this day in Sweden after having a brief racing career. Since then and to this day, 32 years on, I have owned, maintained and driven Spridgets. That is not to say that I have always had one on the road, but I have had them.
Mark's first runner
My working career started when I did an apprenticeship in a Civilian REME
workshop, taking my City & Guilds qualifications at the same time. From
there, my enthusiasm for MGs got the better of me and I started my own business
servicing and repairing all models. One car that I used to look after in
those days I still have today, a 1938 MG TA.
As the years went on, my business sense as a youngster was not all it may
have been and I moved about job to job, gaining experience all the way and
still keeping my professional eye on the cars and era I love, honing my
skills everywhere I went.
Today, I have a small collection of Cars, Bicycles and Military vehicles. My business is now more involved in supplying to the Television and Film world but I still take on a small selected amount of work on Classic cars.
2009 should see me competing in the MGCC Midget Challenge and also I hope in occasional Historic Road Rallies in Anita’s Midget ‘Atlantis’.
Mark posing in his new racer Who does not know this grandstand?
Members
Graham Springthorpe. MG Midget Register Jack of all Trades
I first came across Spridgets as a teenager reading about their exploits
at LeMans and other race tracks around the world. Later my brother and his
mates drove a selection of Frog-eyes and later modelys. At the age of 17,
unable to afford a Midget my first car was an A40 which unfortunately destroyed
itself of a Ford Popular at some traffic lights. After a short acquaintance
with Ford Capri Mk1 (classic style) my first Midget, JUC677D a tartan red
66 MkII arrived and stayed as my only transport for about 5 years. With
married life approaching and the tin rot steadily taking hold the Midget
was dispatched- but life wasn’t the same any more. Enter my current
car, FYD600K in 1982, fitted with revolution wheels and various modifications
for sprinting and insatiable thirst for oil. Almost 30 years later, it now
shares a garage with an MGCGT which last year replaced a ZB Magnette after
ten years of ownership.
I have been on the Midget Register committee for about 14 years, firstly
as Secretary, later a Safety Fast scribe and more recently “minister
without portfolio- jack of all trades”.
Graham Springthorpe
Members
Steve Lenzo. many years ago a young Midget owner, now seeks original car
In August 1965, I purchased my British Racing Green MG Midget, it had been supplied new a few months earlier by Roy Salvadori who owned Elmbridge Motors located on the A3 at Tolworth. I'd spotted the ad in Motorsport magazine and it was located by chance only a few miles away in West Wickham. Surprise, surprise, it was being sold by a boy from my old school whose amorous activities had necessitated a hasty marriage and consequentially the sale of his sports car (which was probably the root cause of his predicament). I paid £480 for a five-month old car, they were £535 brand-new, fitted with wire wheels and anti-roll bar as extras, (University Motors sent me a personal quote on beautifully embossed headed paper for a Riviera Blue Midget at that price, but I could not go to the extra £55)! HYF 850C had to be hidden away as I was not quite 17 and had not passed my driving test; however, come October, three weeks after my 17th, I was in possession of the necessary licence and was king of the road.
This all came as a nasty shock to my parents who had no idea that
I had forsaken Lambrettas and US army Parkas for a ‘lethally dangerous’
sports car. I had been working for a firm of
landscape gardeners every Saturday and school holiday since I was 13 squirreling
away every £ that came my way so now, at 17, I was streets ahead of
my contemporaries who were still pop popping along on their scooters! This
car and the independence it brought me absolutely changed my life, I was
an Articled Clerk to an eminent firm of city Chartered Accountants and was
required to travel the length and breadth of the country carrying out financial
audits. This opened my eyes to another world, meeting royalty, pop and film
stars and this countries then most successful industrialists, as well as
models and London's top night club owners. From that point on I don't think
I ever went home, driving from assignment to assignment in my Midget, often
three up with transporting the attractive female comptometer operators who
were necessary for the arithmetic checks (before the age of computers),
and myself. Obviously these girls would rather be driven in a ‘sports
car’ to an audit, rather than slog it out by train, often these audits
lasted for months, yup life was hell! As a teenage boy, climbing into the
Midget at first light unzipping the driver’s side of the tonneau cover
only and starting that raucous engine to speed off across country to wherever
my audit assignment was that week, I remember daydreaming I was flying off
to defend my country in a Spitfire. (Remember it was only 20 years since
the end of the unpleasantness.) I was, of course, extremely lucky not to
have found out whether I would have had the necessary guts and bravery to
have taken part in the real thing. But driving that Midget was just a magical
experience.
One such audit was Windsor Race Course, this was a wonderful place to work in so many respects, in those days Michael Cane had a house on the Mill stream island adjoining the Race Course. One lunch time, one of my colleagues (he was driving a Frogeye) and I were bored racing each other around the grass car park and continued this impromptu Targa Florio onto the Tarmac-surfaced lanes that criss-crossed this private estate. Side by side we raced at serious speed, judgement being testosterone influenced, when straight ahead was a single-track, humpback bridge over the Mill stream, I took this direction (the Frogeye managing to turn and run along the river bank), the Midget got all four wire wheels airborne and landed over the crest without damage except to the beautiful blond comptometer operator, who was my passenger. Her knee, together with the rest of her, went skywards, breaking the Midget’s infamous passenger parcel tray as well as the skin on her knee, which received my close personal attention that lunch time and for some time after! We found out Michael Cane was not at home at the time, possibly off filming ‘Get Carter’, or some other still viewable thriller.
As time went by, more of my pals acquired Midgets and Sprites, the ‘Squadron’ at its height numbered eight cars including a Frogeye, a Mk 1 Midget, some 1098s and, flashest of all, a 1275 with the centre console in front of the gearbox, housing a radio and speaker. The sight of us all going round Hyde Park was a real buzz, obviously we were all sticking rigidly to the 30mph speed limit. By this time I had modified my Midget by hammering the baffles out of the silencer with a broom handle so the already infamous Midget overrun was basically now a straight through. I was extremely fortunate in that another audit I was engaged on was a BMC garage from where the extremely successful racer Ken Costello ran the Crippspeed Mini, every time it was audit time I had my Midget tuned, boy did they make my engine run sweetly. It was just an eye-opener how smooth and responsive those skilled mechanics could make it go, always having the legs of any of the 1275 boys. Also, at the time, they were working on squeezing a V8 into an MGB GT, interesting as they were also selling MGCs at the time, the consensus being that the ‘C’ was not a patch on the V8.
Being a struggling, Articled Clerk money was always very tight even with petrol being at the time about 5/- (five bob or 25p) a gallon, so it took a year or so before I was able to afford a radio, this being a five push button Elpico for £6/10/- (£6.50p), which I fitted myself centrally under the dash, the single speaker being in the rear panel just below the hood rail. Being able to entertain any female foolish enough to be lured into my highly polished BRG sports car with the sounds of the Beatles or the Stones latest, was definitely a plus!
For all the years that I tore around in my Midget it ran faultlessly, and never missed a beat, absolutely nothing mechanical gave trouble or needed to be replaced. Body wise, the only damage suffered was when one Christmas afternoon I got it into my head that I should take my pal out for an invigorating cobweb blowing blast around the lanes, with the hood down. This particular Christmas was a white one, but this had no effect on my driving style or speed, the ensuing inevitable spin while knocking the stuffing out of myself and my passenger, had no effect on the Midget as the near side rear wing just touched a grass and mud bank, neatly knocking out the rear lamp cluster while leaving the chrome surround perfect. The drive home was at a very sedate silent pace though.
As the years passed, and my 21st arrived as well as a little extra cash, I felt a ‘man’ of my senior years should graduate up from the Midget, so again Motorsport was employed and an advertisement placed in the classifieds soon bought forward a charming couple from East Bridgeford, who were so taken with the still as-new appearance of my Midget (the amount of Turtle wax used on that car must have contributed significantly to their annual profits), that they paid the asking price without quibble. From memory, the sum in question was £410. Depreciation, what depreciation! Being an MG man through and through, my next car was a BRG MGB (LJJ 666D) with chrome wire wheels and overdrive bought from a local dentist; a superb car, but it was not my Midget!
If anybody has any knowledge from any time past or present on HYF 850C,
I would be extremely appreciative if you could drop me an email to: stevelenzo@hotmail.co.uk
Those were the days...
It would be so nice if we could find this
car for Steve wouldn't it?