21 and I want An MG midget HELP!! (First car)
Discussion
Hello! I’m brand new to piston heads (even though I’ve wandered through forums many times before) and I would like your help.
I’m a brand spanking new driver at 21, I’m a dude and I absolutely adore classic cars.
I do not wish to drive a tedious hatchback like 95% of my peers and I’ve always been in love with classic British sports cars:
The Cobra, The Spitfire, the GT6 and the iconic E-type.. the list goes on!
I have fallen in love with the MG Midget and I am extremely attracted to the price of it as well!
Now, I need advice..
Is is financially viable for a university student? Is it cheap to insure for a new, young driver? Is it hard to keep it running? And what’s the best price for one?
Thank you!
I’m a brand spanking new driver at 21, I’m a dude and I absolutely adore classic cars.
I do not wish to drive a tedious hatchback like 95% of my peers and I’ve always been in love with classic British sports cars:
The Cobra, The Spitfire, the GT6 and the iconic E-type.. the list goes on!
I have fallen in love with the MG Midget and I am extremely attracted to the price of it as well!
Now, I need advice..
Is is financially viable for a university student? Is it cheap to insure for a new, young driver? Is it hard to keep it running? And what’s the best price for one?
Thank you!
Insurance......best you do your own research on that ,as there are so many variables ,at least you're not 17yo.
Lowest price......either the car will be a project or a rusty heap ,buy the best you can afford.
It's a simple car ,no modern electrics but it will still be a regular chore to keep it in tip top running order.
Lowest price......either the car will be a project or a rusty heap ,buy the best you can afford.
It's a simple car ,no modern electrics but it will still be a regular chore to keep it in tip top running order.
I'd suggest that if you have somewhere to store it in a garage whilst at uni, I'd say do it!
I bought a Lomax before I passed my test at the age of 18. Whilst I was at uni I kept it in my parents garage and I couldn't get insurance until I was 21 with a specialist kit car insurer, the wait was agonising, but it was totally worth the wait. I kept it for 7 years until I sold it and it went off to live in France.
Since then I've bought a pembleton, and I'm building another one. Once you're hooked, you're hooked.
I bought a Lomax before I passed my test at the age of 18. Whilst I was at uni I kept it in my parents garage and I couldn't get insurance until I was 21 with a specialist kit car insurer, the wait was agonising, but it was totally worth the wait. I kept it for 7 years until I sold it and it went off to live in France.
Since then I've bought a pembleton, and I'm building another one. Once you're hooked, you're hooked.
I probably just about count as 'young', had an MG Midget for three years (sold last autumn) and spent (in retrospect) too much of my university time trying to keep various Land Rovers and Citroen 2CVs roadworthy. So my thoughts:
- You say that you're attracted to the price of a Midget. I don't know what your budget is, though. You can buy a decent (but not perfect) 1500 (the rubber-bumper ones) for £2500 or bit less if you choose carefully. A chrome-bumper model will start at around double that for something in useable condition and can go well into five figures. The earlier cars are progressively slower and less pleasant to drive in terms of their day-to-day practicality. The 1500 is not as good dynamically but easier to live with. The 1275cc Mk3 chrome-bumper car is the pick of the bunch and is priced accordingly.
- I echo the comments that you need somewhere to keep the car. Ideally you'd have somewhere undercover, both to keep the car out of the worst of the weather and somewhere dry to let you do work on the car and keep the inevitable stash of spare parts that will accumulate. At a minimum you'd need some off-street hard standing. It's not pleasant working on a car outdoors in all weathers but that is hugely preferrable to doing it in the street. MG Midgets are also rising in desirability, are easy to steal and worth more in bits than when complete, Bear that in mind if you'll be keeping it in a typically student-ish bit of town.
- I ran my Midget (1975 1500 in Vermillion Orange) as a daily for one year and then regularly used it through the summer for the other two. I probably did about 6000 miles in it in total. That use was everything you'd use a car for - popping to the shops, going to work, 150 miles of motorway to visit the parents, going to car shows, a couple of track days yadda yadda. They're not the most practical things (surprise, surprise). It really goes without saying that they're chuffing tiny. Two average 2018-size people are a bit of a squeeze and there's not that much extra space for bits and bobs. Most of the boot is taken up by the spare wheel. Want to take more than one friend somewhere? Going to IKEA? Going away for the weekend with your other half? Going to band practise? You'll need access to another car.
- Comfortable, quiet, refined. These are all things unknown to the Midget driver. Do you want something this harsh and basic as your only car? It's great in summer, but coming out of work/lectures/whatever at 4.30pm on a dark, rainy December day and folding yourself into your tiny classic sportscar, being bombarded with 75dB of exhaust noise and peering out through the tiny wipers and a partially-fogged windscreen while you try and get out of the car park with deadweight steering and a stiff, sharp clutch can be...tiresome. Will your partner (if applicable) be up for sharing the experience? Sometimes you just want to get home and the Midget requires that you DRIVE it, all the time.
- My Midget was very reliable by 1975 MG standards, in that it only left me stranded once. It did so in spectacular style by conking out at the summit of the QE2 Bridge on the Dartford Crossing, where I was then stranded for nine hours. Not pleasant. The cause was a duff ignition coil, solved by upgrading to an electronic ignition kit (purchased for about £50) and fitted by myself. It also needed the carburettors rebuilding and tuning (£150). I had the radiator recored (£100) and ended up rebuilding the gearbox when a circlip holding the layshaft in place snapped so I couldn't engage second or fourth gear. That job involved taking the engine and gearbox out, seperating the gearbox, dismantling the gearbox, fitting a new circlip, reassembling the gearbox and then putting the whole lot back together. It also needed a new clutch slave cylinder (£35), a new indicator relay (£10) and probably about £100 in oil, filters etc. So in three years it cost me about £500 in parts plus god-knows how many hours of my free time. Which is OK, because it's a hobby and there are much worse vices to have.
Note that I have (had!) the time, space, tools and skills to do all the spanner-spinning myself, so that gearbox job cost me about £25 in parts. It also took up about 10 hours of my time, which would have £400-500 in labour at a specialist. Do you have the resources (practical or financial) to cope with that sort of job? Luckily parts availability for Midgets is excellent and most of them are dirt cheap, even if the quality can be, erm, 'variable.'
- These things need maintaining. There are six or eight grease points on the front suspension alone which need squirting with a grease gun every 3000 miles or, at the absolute bare minimum, once a year. There are more grease points on the propshaft. A Midget **will** leak oil so periodically you'll have to get underneath to top up the gearbox and final drive. The valve clearances need adjusting manually. The clutch linkage needs oiling and adjusting every now and then. How good are you at electrics, because 1970s MGs **will** through up some sort of electrical gremlin at some point.
You don't have to have a PhD in mechanical engineering (I certainly don't!) but you need to be practically minded and willing to learn - Midgets are great to learn on. If you don't have a basic tool kit then you'll need to buy one. The MASC (Midget and Sprite Club) is a font of information and IIRC they have a youth register specifically for youngsters with Spridgets. There are plenty of forums and facebook groups to join and ask questions like "what does this noise mean? Why is it doing this? Why is this dial pointing at that? What's that smell?"
My Midget claimed my time in bursts - an hour or two of maintenance and the odd all-weekend slog to fix something specific that had broken. I've had other classics which have claimed by time in a small, continuous drip, where every single journey seemed to result in something needing tweaking or fixing or adjusting or checking. There's no telling which type of car any Midget you'd buy would be so are you happy for it to be either?
- Insurance should be very cheap. I can't remember what mine was because it was lumped together on a policy with a bunch of other classics but I think it was a couple of hundred a year for me with my lack of no-claims, keeping it on the street in a shabby bit of town and with allowance for commuting.
- Will you have access to another car? You may not own it but would you be able to skive a car off your parents/friends/housemates/partner when the MG inevitably won't start or is in bits and you need to be somewhere? It will happen. When I had old Land Rovers and 2CVs at uni I ended up forking out £150 on a cheap hatchback simply so I had a backup car when the classics were being difficult. It was worth the extra running costs for the peace of mind. In my own experience there will be times when you'd much rather be socialising as uni students should rather than being up to your elbows in an engine bay because you have to change that water pump so you can get somewhere the following morning, oh and look, now it's started raining and you've just skinned your knuckles on that bolt head. That's part and parcel of the classic car experience, especially on a budget and as a student, but be prepared for it.
- Classics are all about highs and lows. Bombing the MG around Cadwell Park on a summer evening, driving through Suffolk on a frosty winter's day with the heater on full and the hood down, and bumbling across The Fens on a fresh spring day are some of the best times I've had in a car. Alternatively spending an entire winter's Saturday with frozen fingers trying to balance the carburettors, unpicking some joker's idea of a replacement wiring loom (made entirely from red wires) or sitting at the Dartford Crossing for nine hours are not fond memories.
- You say that you're attracted to the price of a Midget. I don't know what your budget is, though. You can buy a decent (but not perfect) 1500 (the rubber-bumper ones) for £2500 or bit less if you choose carefully. A chrome-bumper model will start at around double that for something in useable condition and can go well into five figures. The earlier cars are progressively slower and less pleasant to drive in terms of their day-to-day practicality. The 1500 is not as good dynamically but easier to live with. The 1275cc Mk3 chrome-bumper car is the pick of the bunch and is priced accordingly.
- I echo the comments that you need somewhere to keep the car. Ideally you'd have somewhere undercover, both to keep the car out of the worst of the weather and somewhere dry to let you do work on the car and keep the inevitable stash of spare parts that will accumulate. At a minimum you'd need some off-street hard standing. It's not pleasant working on a car outdoors in all weathers but that is hugely preferrable to doing it in the street. MG Midgets are also rising in desirability, are easy to steal and worth more in bits than when complete, Bear that in mind if you'll be keeping it in a typically student-ish bit of town.
- I ran my Midget (1975 1500 in Vermillion Orange) as a daily for one year and then regularly used it through the summer for the other two. I probably did about 6000 miles in it in total. That use was everything you'd use a car for - popping to the shops, going to work, 150 miles of motorway to visit the parents, going to car shows, a couple of track days yadda yadda. They're not the most practical things (surprise, surprise). It really goes without saying that they're chuffing tiny. Two average 2018-size people are a bit of a squeeze and there's not that much extra space for bits and bobs. Most of the boot is taken up by the spare wheel. Want to take more than one friend somewhere? Going to IKEA? Going away for the weekend with your other half? Going to band practise? You'll need access to another car.
- Comfortable, quiet, refined. These are all things unknown to the Midget driver. Do you want something this harsh and basic as your only car? It's great in summer, but coming out of work/lectures/whatever at 4.30pm on a dark, rainy December day and folding yourself into your tiny classic sportscar, being bombarded with 75dB of exhaust noise and peering out through the tiny wipers and a partially-fogged windscreen while you try and get out of the car park with deadweight steering and a stiff, sharp clutch can be...tiresome. Will your partner (if applicable) be up for sharing the experience? Sometimes you just want to get home and the Midget requires that you DRIVE it, all the time.
- My Midget was very reliable by 1975 MG standards, in that it only left me stranded once. It did so in spectacular style by conking out at the summit of the QE2 Bridge on the Dartford Crossing, where I was then stranded for nine hours. Not pleasant. The cause was a duff ignition coil, solved by upgrading to an electronic ignition kit (purchased for about £50) and fitted by myself. It also needed the carburettors rebuilding and tuning (£150). I had the radiator recored (£100) and ended up rebuilding the gearbox when a circlip holding the layshaft in place snapped so I couldn't engage second or fourth gear. That job involved taking the engine and gearbox out, seperating the gearbox, dismantling the gearbox, fitting a new circlip, reassembling the gearbox and then putting the whole lot back together. It also needed a new clutch slave cylinder (£35), a new indicator relay (£10) and probably about £100 in oil, filters etc. So in three years it cost me about £500 in parts plus god-knows how many hours of my free time. Which is OK, because it's a hobby and there are much worse vices to have.
Note that I have (had!) the time, space, tools and skills to do all the spanner-spinning myself, so that gearbox job cost me about £25 in parts. It also took up about 10 hours of my time, which would have £400-500 in labour at a specialist. Do you have the resources (practical or financial) to cope with that sort of job? Luckily parts availability for Midgets is excellent and most of them are dirt cheap, even if the quality can be, erm, 'variable.'
- These things need maintaining. There are six or eight grease points on the front suspension alone which need squirting with a grease gun every 3000 miles or, at the absolute bare minimum, once a year. There are more grease points on the propshaft. A Midget **will** leak oil so periodically you'll have to get underneath to top up the gearbox and final drive. The valve clearances need adjusting manually. The clutch linkage needs oiling and adjusting every now and then. How good are you at electrics, because 1970s MGs **will** through up some sort of electrical gremlin at some point.
You don't have to have a PhD in mechanical engineering (I certainly don't!) but you need to be practically minded and willing to learn - Midgets are great to learn on. If you don't have a basic tool kit then you'll need to buy one. The MASC (Midget and Sprite Club) is a font of information and IIRC they have a youth register specifically for youngsters with Spridgets. There are plenty of forums and facebook groups to join and ask questions like "what does this noise mean? Why is it doing this? Why is this dial pointing at that? What's that smell?"
My Midget claimed my time in bursts - an hour or two of maintenance and the odd all-weekend slog to fix something specific that had broken. I've had other classics which have claimed by time in a small, continuous drip, where every single journey seemed to result in something needing tweaking or fixing or adjusting or checking. There's no telling which type of car any Midget you'd buy would be so are you happy for it to be either?
- Insurance should be very cheap. I can't remember what mine was because it was lumped together on a policy with a bunch of other classics but I think it was a couple of hundred a year for me with my lack of no-claims, keeping it on the street in a shabby bit of town and with allowance for commuting.
- Will you have access to another car? You may not own it but would you be able to skive a car off your parents/friends/housemates/partner when the MG inevitably won't start or is in bits and you need to be somewhere? It will happen. When I had old Land Rovers and 2CVs at uni I ended up forking out £150 on a cheap hatchback simply so I had a backup car when the classics were being difficult. It was worth the extra running costs for the peace of mind. In my own experience there will be times when you'd much rather be socialising as uni students should rather than being up to your elbows in an engine bay because you have to change that water pump so you can get somewhere the following morning, oh and look, now it's started raining and you've just skinned your knuckles on that bolt head. That's part and parcel of the classic car experience, especially on a budget and as a student, but be prepared for it.
- Classics are all about highs and lows. Bombing the MG around Cadwell Park on a summer evening, driving through Suffolk on a frosty winter's day with the heater on full and the hood down, and bumbling across The Fens on a fresh spring day are some of the best times I've had in a car. Alternatively spending an entire winter's Saturday with frozen fingers trying to balance the carburettors, unpicking some joker's idea of a replacement wiring loom (made entirely from red wires) or sitting at the Dartford Crossing for nine hours are not fond memories.
Edited by 2xChevrons on Wednesday 6th June 21:13
2xChevrons said:
I probably just about count as 'young', had an MG Midget for three years (sold last autumn) and spent (in retrospect) too much of my university time trying to keep various Land Rovers and Citroen 2CVs roadworthy. So my thoughts:
- You say that you're attracted to the price of a Midget. I don't know what your budget is, though. You can buy a decent (but not perfect) 1500 (the rubber-bumper ones) for £2500 or bit less if you choose carefully. A chrome-bumper model will start at around double that for something in useable condition and can go well into five figures. The earlier cars are progressively slower and less pleasant to drive in terms of their day-to-day practicality. The 1500 is not as good dynamically but easier to live with. The 1275cc Mk3 chrome-bumper car is the pick of the bunch and is priced accordingly.
- I echo the comments that you need somewhere to keep the car. Ideally you'd have somewhere undercover, both to keep the car out of the worst of the weather and somewhere dry to let you do work on the car and keep the inevitable stash of spare parts that will accumulate. At a minimum you'd need some off-street hard standing. It's not pleasant working on a car outdoors in all weathers but that is hugely preferrable to doing it in the street. MG Midgets are also rising in desirability, are easy to steal and worth more in bits than when complete, Bear that in mind if you'll be keeping it in a typically student-ish bit of town.
- I ran my Midget (1975 1500 in Vermillion Orange) as a daily for one year and then regularly used it through the summer for the other two. I probably did about 6000 miles in it in total. That use was everything you'd use a car for - popping to the shops, going to work, 150 miles of motorway to visit the parents, going to car shows, a couple of track days yadda yadda. They're not the most practical things (surprise, surprise). It really goes without saying that they're chuffing tiny. Two average 2018-size people are a bit of a squeeze and there's not that much extra space for bits and bobs. Most of the boot is taken up by the spare wheel. Want to take more than one friend somewhere? Going to IKEA? Going away for the weekend with your other half? Going to band practise? You'll need access to another car.
- Comfortable, quiet, refined. These are all things unknown to the Midget driver. Do you want something this harsh and basic as your only car? It's great in summer, but coming out of work/lectures/whatever at 4.30pm on a dark, rainy December day and folding yourself into your tiny classic sportscar, being bombarded with 75dB of exhaust noise and peering out through the tiny wipers and a partially-fogged windscreen while you try and get out of the car park with deadweight steering and a stiff, sharp clutch can be...tiresome. Will your partner (if applicable) be up for sharing the experience? Sometimes you just want to get home and the Midget requires that you DRIVE it, all the time.
- My Midget was very reliable by 1975 MG standards, in that it only left me stranded once. It did so in spectacular style by conking out at the summit of the QE2 Bridge on the Dartford Crossing, where I was then stranded for nine hours. Not pleasant. The cause was a duff ignition coil, solved by upgrading to an electronic ignition kit (purchased for about £50) and fitted by myself. It also needed the carburettors rebuilding and tuning (£150). I had the radiator recored (£100) and ended up rebuilding the gearbox when a circlip holding the layshaft in place snapped so I couldn't engage second or fourth gear. That job involved taking the engine and gearbox out, seperating the gearbox, dismantling the gearbox, fitting a new circlip, reassembling the gearbox and then putting the whole lot back together. It also needed a new clutch slave cylinder (£35), a new indicator relay (£10) and probably about £100 in oil, filters etc. So in three years it cost me about £500 in parts plus god-knows how many hours of my free time. Which is OK, because it's a hobby and there are much worse vices to have.
Note that I have (had!) the time, space, tools and skills to do all the spanner-spinning myself, so that gearbox job cost me about £25 in parts. It also took up about 10 hours of my time, which would have £400-500 in labour at a specialist. Do you have the resources (practical or financial) to cope with that sort of job? Luckily parts availability for Midgets is excellent and most of them are dirt cheap, even if the quality can be, erm, 'variable.'
- These things need maintaining. There are six or eight grease points on the front suspension alone which need squirting with a grease gun every 3000 miles or, at the absolute bare minimum, once a year. There are more grease points on the propshaft. A Midget **will** leak oil so periodically you'll have to get underneath to top up the gearbox and final drive. The valve clearances need adjusting manually. The clutch linkage needs oiling and adjusting every now and then. How good are you at electrics, because 1970s MGs **will** through up some sort of electrical gremlin at some point.
You don't have to have a PhD in mechanical engineering (I certainly don't!) but you need to be practically minded and willing to learn - Midgets are great to learn on. If you don't have a basic tool kit then you'll need to buy one. The MASC (Midget and Sprite Club) is a font of information and IIRC they have a youth register specifically for youngsters with Spridgets. There are plenty of forums and facebook groups to join and ask questions like "what does this noise mean? Why is it doing this? Why is this dial pointing at that? What's that smell?"
My Midget claimed my time in bursts - an hour or two of maintenance and the odd all-weekend slog to fix something specific that had broken. I've had other classics which have claimed by time in a small, continuous drip, where every single journey seemed to result in something needing tweaking or fixing or adjusting or checking. There's no telling which type of car any Midget you'd buy would be so are you happy for it to be either?
- Insurance should be very cheap. I can't remember what mine was because it was lumped together on a policy with a bunch of other classics but I think it was a couple of hundred a year for me with my lack of no-claims, keeping it on the street in a shabby bit of town and with allowance for commuting.
- Will you have access to another car? You may not own it but would you be able to skive a car off your parents/friends/housemates/partner when the MG inevitably won't start or is in bits and you need to be somewhere? It will happen. When I had old Land Rovers and 2CVs at uni I ended up forking out £150 on a cheap hatchback simply so I had a backup car when the classics were being difficult. It was worth the extra running costs for the peace of mind. In my own experience there will be times when you'd much rather be socialising as uni students should rather than being up to your elbows in an engine bay because you have to change that water pump so you can get somewhere the following morning, oh and look, now it's started raining and you've just skinned your knuckles on that bolt head. That's part and parcel of the classic car experience, especially on a budget and as a student, but be prepared for it.
- Classics are all about highs and lows. Bombing the MG around Cadwell Park on a summer evening, driving through Suffolk on a frosty winter's day with the heater on full and the hood down, and bumbling across The Fens on a fresh spring day are some of the best times I've had in a car. Alternatively spending an entire winter's Saturday with frozen fingers trying to balance the carburettors, unpicking some joker's idea of a replacement wiring loom (made entirely from red wires) or sitting at the Dartford Crossing for nine hours are not fond memories.
Great post. - You say that you're attracted to the price of a Midget. I don't know what your budget is, though. You can buy a decent (but not perfect) 1500 (the rubber-bumper ones) for £2500 or bit less if you choose carefully. A chrome-bumper model will start at around double that for something in useable condition and can go well into five figures. The earlier cars are progressively slower and less pleasant to drive in terms of their day-to-day practicality. The 1500 is not as good dynamically but easier to live with. The 1275cc Mk3 chrome-bumper car is the pick of the bunch and is priced accordingly.
- I echo the comments that you need somewhere to keep the car. Ideally you'd have somewhere undercover, both to keep the car out of the worst of the weather and somewhere dry to let you do work on the car and keep the inevitable stash of spare parts that will accumulate. At a minimum you'd need some off-street hard standing. It's not pleasant working on a car outdoors in all weathers but that is hugely preferrable to doing it in the street. MG Midgets are also rising in desirability, are easy to steal and worth more in bits than when complete, Bear that in mind if you'll be keeping it in a typically student-ish bit of town.
- I ran my Midget (1975 1500 in Vermillion Orange) as a daily for one year and then regularly used it through the summer for the other two. I probably did about 6000 miles in it in total. That use was everything you'd use a car for - popping to the shops, going to work, 150 miles of motorway to visit the parents, going to car shows, a couple of track days yadda yadda. They're not the most practical things (surprise, surprise). It really goes without saying that they're chuffing tiny. Two average 2018-size people are a bit of a squeeze and there's not that much extra space for bits and bobs. Most of the boot is taken up by the spare wheel. Want to take more than one friend somewhere? Going to IKEA? Going away for the weekend with your other half? Going to band practise? You'll need access to another car.
- Comfortable, quiet, refined. These are all things unknown to the Midget driver. Do you want something this harsh and basic as your only car? It's great in summer, but coming out of work/lectures/whatever at 4.30pm on a dark, rainy December day and folding yourself into your tiny classic sportscar, being bombarded with 75dB of exhaust noise and peering out through the tiny wipers and a partially-fogged windscreen while you try and get out of the car park with deadweight steering and a stiff, sharp clutch can be...tiresome. Will your partner (if applicable) be up for sharing the experience? Sometimes you just want to get home and the Midget requires that you DRIVE it, all the time.
- My Midget was very reliable by 1975 MG standards, in that it only left me stranded once. It did so in spectacular style by conking out at the summit of the QE2 Bridge on the Dartford Crossing, where I was then stranded for nine hours. Not pleasant. The cause was a duff ignition coil, solved by upgrading to an electronic ignition kit (purchased for about £50) and fitted by myself. It also needed the carburettors rebuilding and tuning (£150). I had the radiator recored (£100) and ended up rebuilding the gearbox when a circlip holding the layshaft in place snapped so I couldn't engage second or fourth gear. That job involved taking the engine and gearbox out, seperating the gearbox, dismantling the gearbox, fitting a new circlip, reassembling the gearbox and then putting the whole lot back together. It also needed a new clutch slave cylinder (£35), a new indicator relay (£10) and probably about £100 in oil, filters etc. So in three years it cost me about £500 in parts plus god-knows how many hours of my free time. Which is OK, because it's a hobby and there are much worse vices to have.
Note that I have (had!) the time, space, tools and skills to do all the spanner-spinning myself, so that gearbox job cost me about £25 in parts. It also took up about 10 hours of my time, which would have £400-500 in labour at a specialist. Do you have the resources (practical or financial) to cope with that sort of job? Luckily parts availability for Midgets is excellent and most of them are dirt cheap, even if the quality can be, erm, 'variable.'
- These things need maintaining. There are six or eight grease points on the front suspension alone which need squirting with a grease gun every 3000 miles or, at the absolute bare minimum, once a year. There are more grease points on the propshaft. A Midget **will** leak oil so periodically you'll have to get underneath to top up the gearbox and final drive. The valve clearances need adjusting manually. The clutch linkage needs oiling and adjusting every now and then. How good are you at electrics, because 1970s MGs **will** through up some sort of electrical gremlin at some point.
You don't have to have a PhD in mechanical engineering (I certainly don't!) but you need to be practically minded and willing to learn - Midgets are great to learn on. If you don't have a basic tool kit then you'll need to buy one. The MASC (Midget and Sprite Club) is a font of information and IIRC they have a youth register specifically for youngsters with Spridgets. There are plenty of forums and facebook groups to join and ask questions like "what does this noise mean? Why is it doing this? Why is this dial pointing at that? What's that smell?"
My Midget claimed my time in bursts - an hour or two of maintenance and the odd all-weekend slog to fix something specific that had broken. I've had other classics which have claimed by time in a small, continuous drip, where every single journey seemed to result in something needing tweaking or fixing or adjusting or checking. There's no telling which type of car any Midget you'd buy would be so are you happy for it to be either?
- Insurance should be very cheap. I can't remember what mine was because it was lumped together on a policy with a bunch of other classics but I think it was a couple of hundred a year for me with my lack of no-claims, keeping it on the street in a shabby bit of town and with allowance for commuting.
- Will you have access to another car? You may not own it but would you be able to skive a car off your parents/friends/housemates/partner when the MG inevitably won't start or is in bits and you need to be somewhere? It will happen. When I had old Land Rovers and 2CVs at uni I ended up forking out £150 on a cheap hatchback simply so I had a backup car when the classics were being difficult. It was worth the extra running costs for the peace of mind. In my own experience there will be times when you'd much rather be socialising as uni students should rather than being up to your elbows in an engine bay because you have to change that water pump so you can get somewhere the following morning, oh and look, now it's started raining and you've just skinned your knuckles on that bolt head. That's part and parcel of the classic car experience, especially on a budget and as a student, but be prepared for it.
- Classics are all about highs and lows. Bombing the MG around Cadwell Park on a summer evening, driving through Suffolk on a frosty winter's day with the heater on full and the hood down, and bumbling across The Fens on a fresh spring day are some of the best times I've had in a car. Alternatively spending an entire winter's Saturday with frozen fingers trying to balance the carburettors, unpicking some joker's idea of a replacement wiring loom (made entirely from red wires) or sitting at the Dartford Crossing for nine hours are not fond memories.
Edited by 2xChevrons on Wednesday 6th June 21:13
Great stuff. I had a 69 Midget which was 4 chassis numbers away from being a 1275, black sill covers etc. It had chrome air filters and everything....
It was my second car, when I was 19. Loved it, but as everyone has said, insurance is all. And it will break down. Mobile phone and aa cover also needed!
It was my second car, when I was 19. Loved it, but as everyone has said, insurance is all. And it will break down. Mobile phone and aa cover also needed!
May I be a bit naughty and maybe stir a hornets nest but I know if I was looking at Midgets I know which one I’d prefer. Some great advice above, join an owners club for reasonable insurance quotes and for gods sake whichever car you decide on make sure it has overdrive but most of all have fun 
Lots to think about here, but here's my experience.
I had my Herald convertible at university in Portsmouth around 1992-94. Parking was a pain, shared house and on street parking only. Had all my tools stolen out of it, had the roof slashed to nick the tax disc (pre free road tax days) and tended to walk everywhere so it sat there festering in the cold damp air. Broke my heart to see it suffer like that. I had no uni job or income so parts and maintenance was a struggle. I was always worried about random vandalism too. After a year or two I was able to store it at my grandparents.
So, depends on your income, budget, parking, spannering skills, location, and a few others I am sure. Can't help on insurance, but as other say, it will probably be high. Classic policies usually require the car to be garage, and not your daily car too.
Still got the Herald though.
I had my Herald convertible at university in Portsmouth around 1992-94. Parking was a pain, shared house and on street parking only. Had all my tools stolen out of it, had the roof slashed to nick the tax disc (pre free road tax days) and tended to walk everywhere so it sat there festering in the cold damp air. Broke my heart to see it suffer like that. I had no uni job or income so parts and maintenance was a struggle. I was always worried about random vandalism too. After a year or two I was able to store it at my grandparents.
So, depends on your income, budget, parking, spannering skills, location, and a few others I am sure. Can't help on insurance, but as other say, it will probably be high. Classic policies usually require the car to be garage, and not your daily car too.
Still got the Herald though.
GT6 Jonsey said:
May I be a bit naughty and maybe stir a hornets nest but I know if I was looking at Midgets I know which one I’d prefer. Some great advice above, join an owners club for reasonable insurance quotes and for gods sake whichever car you decide on make sure it has overdrive but most of all have fun
I was about to say exactly this - I have owned two of each and had a Spitfire as my only car all the way through university. I did a lot in that car - including travelling round Eastern Europe as the wall came down. But, as you will have guessed, I was at University in the early 90s. The gap in things like refinement and reliability between my cars and my friends' cars - generally 5-10 year old small ordinary cars - wasn't the gulf it would be today. It was kept outside all that time. If you are planning on working on it yourself the Spitfire is MUCH easier. Also slightly larger (so more spacious) and slightly less hard work on a run, especially if it has overdrive, though you can fit 5 speed boxes to Midgets.
If you want a classic that is easy to repair (which you will need to do) and service (which you will need to do much more often) and not that expensive then a Spitfire would be my recommendation. MkIV 1300 probably the easiest to live with.
Edited by Norfolkandchance on Thursday 7th June 15:40
Edited by Norfolkandchance on Thursday 7th June 15:41
Norfolkandchance said:
I was about to say exactly this - I have owned two of each and had a Spitfire as my only car all the way through university. I did a lot in that car - including travelling round Eastern Europe as the wall came down. But, as you will have guessed, I was at University in the early 90s. The gap in things like refinement and reliability between my cars and my friends' cars - generally 5-10 year old small ordinary cars - wasn't the gulf it would be today. It was kept outside all that time.
If you are planning on working on it yourself the Spitfire is MUCH easier. Also slightly larger (so more spacious) and slightly less hard work on a run, especially if it has overdrive, though you can fit 5 speed boxes to Midgets.
If you want a classic that is easy to repair (which you will need to do) and service (which you will need to do much more often) and not that expensive then a Spitfire would be my recommendation. MkIV 1300 probably the easiest to live with.
Thirded this opinion. While I would always go for the Spridget over the Spitfire (the Spridget is, on my purely subjective terms, better to drive, better-looking, generally has better build quality and generally you get a better one for your money) the Triumph clearly wins out in terms of practicality - a better ride quality, more spacious and comfortable cockpit, more cruise-orientated gearing and most of them have overdrive and then there's the party-piece bonnet which gives fantastic access to the bits that are most likely to need working on. For some reasons it's also much more common to find Spitfires with hard tops, which are very rare on Midgets, which make them much more pleasant to use in winter. If you are planning on working on it yourself the Spitfire is MUCH easier. Also slightly larger (so more spacious) and slightly less hard work on a run, especially if it has overdrive, though you can fit 5 speed boxes to Midgets.
If you want a classic that is easy to repair (which you will need to do) and service (which you will need to do much more often) and not that expensive then a Spitfire would be my recommendation. MkIV 1300 probably the easiest to live with.
While there's nothing stopping you from doing long distances in a Midget that was never in their design brief. Even a 1500 on the later high-ratio back axle makes hard work of 70mph cruising (it'll do it no problem, but it's noisy, rough and the 1500's engine doesn't like it in the long run) and the A-Series ones really have to cruise at 60mph to keep things vaguely civilised - you'll be pulling 4500rpm at 70mph in a Mk3 or an early 1500, and even more in the earlier models. A Spitfire will be much more refined.
TooMany2cvs said:
Classic insurance is going to be tricky. Under 25, and not a second car...? The vast majority of classic insurers will just put the phone down. Vanilla insurance is not going to want to know about something even mildly left-field like a Spridge.
Yet ironically any modern small car in group 1 Insurance category will have far better performance than a Spridget. Some great posts and advice above!
I remember a friend at uni having a spitfire as his everyday car and thinking he was a bit mad, and that was in 1992 :-)
We have a chrome bumper Midget amongst out fleet, and while my other half used to daily drive it for six months a year, it didn't take long for that to morph into daily drive it on sunny days six months of the year, when the traffic is ok...
Midgets are a lot of fun if away from the motorway, and can be very reliable in a 70s regular maintenance kind of way as detailed above. 123 Electronic ignition would be first thing on the list, and immediately halves the maintenance time. Even with maintenance as per book you will need to replace the front trunnions every few years at a few hundred quid per side.
They do rust, so getting one that is structurally sound is key - do your homework on this. We don't let ours anywhere near road salt in the winter.
It's perfectly possible for you, but there are much cheaper and more comfortable options out there as a cheap only car.
I remember a friend at uni having a spitfire as his everyday car and thinking he was a bit mad, and that was in 1992 :-)
We have a chrome bumper Midget amongst out fleet, and while my other half used to daily drive it for six months a year, it didn't take long for that to morph into daily drive it on sunny days six months of the year, when the traffic is ok...
Midgets are a lot of fun if away from the motorway, and can be very reliable in a 70s regular maintenance kind of way as detailed above. 123 Electronic ignition would be first thing on the list, and immediately halves the maintenance time. Even with maintenance as per book you will need to replace the front trunnions every few years at a few hundred quid per side.
They do rust, so getting one that is structurally sound is key - do your homework on this. We don't let ours anywhere near road salt in the winter.
It's perfectly possible for you, but there are much cheaper and more comfortable options out there as a cheap only car.
Charlie Croker mk2 said:
OP : Have you actually driven any of these? UN reliable, not safe, cold in winter, plentiful supply of parts - I wonder why. Dreadful things. If you really want the wind in your hair get a mx5 still desperately crude to drive though butvat least they run on unleaded!
Are you sure you should be coming into the classic forum...?Bought mine when I was 16, still have it almost 33 years later, (it was reshelled 23 years ago). Not sure of insurance cost at your age today, but it's very cheap to run, parts cheap, simple to repair, steering is great, gearbox is lovely. The narrowness means you can mostly keep going on narrow lanes without having to pull onto verges when meeting oncoming traffic. I built and have driven my father's MGB which is more long legged but I think the Midget is a better sportscar, it's just more responsive.
Mine went to Versailles and back, never missed a beat, still on a dynamo and points. On small country roads I sometimes prefer it to my Vantage.
Get one bought!
Mine went to Versailles and back, never missed a beat, still on a dynamo and points. On small country roads I sometimes prefer it to my Vantage.
Get one bought!
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