Yesterday, I was taking my Mom somewhere, and I decided to drive up to show her and to get a closer look. It was parked at the curb of a neighbor who is constantly working on cars (as his business.) (He is actually a horrible neighbor: loud music, sheds in the driveway, very odd lawn ornaments, etc). Anyway, the owner (my neighbor's friend) was outside and we got to talking. Turns out he got it as part of a trade when selling his car. He knows nothing about British cars and intends to sell it.
It's a 1976. The top is new, the paint is 8 years old, clutch and brake lines recently replaced, and a bunch of other stuff recently worked on. It is very solid, in terms of rust. And it has 77,000 miles on it. However, the owner said it idles extremely rough, "not nearly as good as yours is now," he said. I don't think I'll ever hear someone say that again!
He said he was thinking of selling it for $3000-$3500. Which seems about right. So there's no money to be made if I bought it. What's nice is he's throwing in a bunch of extras (body panels, windshield, various other parts) but what I perked up about was a 5-speed transmission. He said he'd consider selling it separately. Realistically though, I wouldn't buy it. I'm just ecstatic when the car is running normal as is.
Anyway, I took some shots tonight before it got dark. Upon closer examination, there are a lot of things I dislike about the car:
-the color
-the rubber bumpers
-the wire wheels
-the painted-over MIDGET lettering
-the mud flaps (who puts mud flaps on a Midget?)
-I believe the luggage rack is meant for an MGB, a Midget rack should have 4 slats. I don't like that the middle slat covers the MG emblem.
However, I do like that it looks very clean and rust-free. It has the same interior as mine, but with a wooden steering wheel and wooden shifter knob. The interior was in comparable shape to mine.
All in all, it was neat just see another Midget. After I took some shots, I ran down and took some pictures of my car so you can compare between the rubber-bumpered 1500 Midgets and the chrome, RWA, 1275 Midgets.
2 comments:
I think I like the wire spoke wheels better than yours.
I wouldn't mind them so much on a 1960s model, but they look ridiculous on that one. They're also extremely difficult to care for and look much worse when not clean (his was obviously recently cleaned.)
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