1977 MG Midget 1500 - Rebuilt with Upgrades

Our Midget 1500 was built in 1977, smack in the middle of the six-year production run. It was bought by current owner Philip as an MOT failure in September 1997. His plan was to transfer the working parts onto a new Heritage body shell in order to produce a fun car for his wife. It won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone involved in the classic world that Philip ended up replacing nearly all the parts with new ones.

This car’s 1493cc engine (also used in the last Triumph Spitfires) was rebored and its bottom end was balanced, but the main problem with the 1500 as it exited the factory was its unambitious state of top-end tune. That’s been well and truly rectified here. Autosprint in Birmingham gas flowed the cylinder head and fitted a road/race cam. They also hardened the valve seats, so you’re good to go on unleaded. Feeding in the juice is the aftermarket hop-up de choix for any self respecting British hot-rodder in the 1960s and 1970s, a brace of twin-choke Weber 45DCOE carbs. Feeding out the exhaust gas is a high-flow 4-2-1 pipe.

The engine was set up on a rolling road, with results that you can (sort of) see from the performance test chart in the pics. Although the power axis presents you with a confusing selection of numbers, we’ve put our sorting hat on and reckon it’s showing around 87bhp at the wheels, which if correct was a very useful increase on the 1500’s standard 65bhp or so. That’s running on the standard ignition too, so there’s plenty more to come in that department.

On the transmission side, the original gearbox (modified Morris Marina 4-speed units in these 1500s) was overhauled and competition half-shafts fitted. The 3.7 to 1 differential gives a good combination of on-track responsiveness and decently relaxed 4th gear cruising, 3000rpm equating to more than 50mph.

Ex-works, that 1500 motor had the same sort of horsepower as the preceding A-Series Midget but it was a good bit more torquey. The additional thrunge brought about by Philip’s sensible tuning programme makes the car as much of a joy to short-shift around the back lanes as it is to extend around a track.

Unfortunately, or fortunately if you’re looking for an unthrashed car and thinking of becoming the next owner of this one, the upshot of all Philip’s efforts was a car that was a bit too exciting for his other half. After clocking up a few thousand reliable miles, the MG was put away in the garage where it’s been cosily wrapped up ever since, with just over 94,000 miles recorded.

There was never a plan to sell but Philip has now been bitten by a different bug, the single-horsepower world of the American quarter horse. The all-consuming nature of that pursuit has nagged’ him into putting the MG on the market so that someone else can enjoy the fruits of his labour. To that end he asked renowned marque experts Fisher MG to give it a thorough checkover prior to an MOT test in February this year – which it passed with no advisories.

The Midget 1500’s US-dictated rubber bumpers have been nearly as widely criticised over the years as the UK’s Eurovision song competition entries, but there is a useful upside, which is that they do a really good job of protecting the front end from stone chips. This Midget’s paint generally is still excellent, and there is no sign of rust bubbling or blemishes anywhere on the shiny exterior panels.

Shutlines are narrow and even, as you'd expect from a Heritage shell. The last Mk 3 1275 Midgets from ’72 to ’74 had round wheelarches. Earlier Mk 3s had squared-off arches. You’ll note that the 1500’s rear arches are a combination of both, ie rounded with a squared off top line. That design was brought in to enhance rigidity – something to bore your drinking buddies with next time you’re down at the Fillet & Firkin.

We're not aware of MG offering a factory hardtop for the 1500, but this car has a surprisingly attractive aftermarket item that suits the car really well and which adds an extra dimension of practical all-year-round motoring to the sometimes draughty ragtop Midget. As you can tell from the pictures, it’s seen very little use.

If low-cost motorsport sounds appealing to you, you’re well on the way here as this Midget comes with a rollover bar, Sparco competition driver’s seat belt and Minilite pattern 7J alloy wheels, including a spare.

Part of Philip’s long-term plan was to remove the bumpers and go for a more traditional Midget look. According to tinternet, once the front one is off you can attach a 1275 grille to the bumper mounts and then split open the indicators, refitting the two halves in front of and behind the wing. There are more expensive ways of doing it, which would involve welding in new metal, filling and sanding, but whichever method you plump for it’s definitely possible to recapture that clean 1275 look.

As mentioned earlier, the early Mk 1 Midget 1275s had leather seats, but the vinyl that was adopted in later cars and in the 1500 is very wear-resistant. The ones here are free of nicks or tears and the Sparco race harness on the driver’s side will mitigate most of the slidey effects of high-g cornering. Your passenger will have to take pot luck though, or invest in some padded trousers.

Additional driver location services are provided by the chunky Mountney leather steering wheel, another great name from the pre-airbag days. In case you’re wondering, tall people do fit in Midget 1500s. Philip is 6ft 5in and has never had a problem squeezing his mighty legs in.

The floor carpets and door cards are in the same sort of ready-to-go condition as the rest of the car.

Very few Midgets have escaped the scourge of corrosion, and this one is no different, but the brownery on the exhaust system and on some suspension components (as a rough guide for tinkerers, replacement rear leaf springs are about £60 a side) shouldn’t be a major concern, based on the fact that the car passed its MOT in February with no advisories after an examination by Fisher MG.

A tiny amount of patching product applied to the trailing edge of the nearside sill suggests some paint damage to that area somewhen. A personal inspection is always the best way to reassure yourself, but as it stands there are no visible indications of any problems with the Heritage shell and seams either underneath or in the boot. For this we must thank the god of Waxoyl.

A perfectionist owner might want to address the very slight oxidisation on the nearside stainless steel quarterlight frame. These do have a reputation for cracking. If that happens, new or used replacements are available (at a price!), but getting your local mechanic to weld them up is a quick and inexpensive option.

The underbonnet view is dominated by those Weber 45DCOE twin-choke carbs and the polished rocker box. The engine bay appears to be very dry, the radiator looks dent-free, and the four-stud Minator Minilite-style alloys seem to be in excellent nick.

There’s a lovely big fan of paperwork in the Gallery, which you could either use as an actual fan in the warmer weather we’re currently enjoying, or you could separate it into the individual bills that (to Philip’s shock, as he’d never totted them up before) amount to not far short of £10,000.

We’ve done that second thing, so you don't have to. Here are a few of the bigger individual items: £2000 for the Heritage shell, £1000 for painting and Waxoyling, £450 for the wheelarches, £490 for carbs and inlets, £375 for wheels and nuts, £275 for tyres, £418 for the headwork, £250 for the 4-2-1 exhaust, £200 for the hardtop and £150 for the roll bar.

Eeehh, things were right cheap in them days. Those Weber 45DCOE carbs would be around £650 now, and there’s an even bigger shock in store for anyone trying to get a Heritage shell in 2019. Read on…

There are three ways to get your hands on a car like Philip’s well-sorted Midget. One would be to buy something that looks right but that turns out to be a rolling rustbucket, an easy mistake to make in the Midget market. This is a perfect route to choose if you enjoy giving your money away to not-so-good causes.

Route two would be to start from scratch by joining the BMH waiting list for a Heritage body shell. A year or so later your new shell will arrive, along with a bill for £10,175 (they’ve gone up!). All you’d have to do then would be to waxoil and paint it. Oh, and buy and fit all the mechanicals and trim of course. To get your Heritage car to the same sort of spec as Philip’s, you’d be lucky to come in at under £20,000. Very likely you’d be in for a lot more, especially if you ended up outsourcing a lot of the work. Which, let’s be honest, is often the way of it when life gets in the way of all your best plans. As noted, parts prices have gone up somewhat since this car was built.

Or you could circumvent all that by taking route three, which simply means buying Philip’s car. Not only is it a finished Heritage-shelled Midget, it’s a performance car that’s been sensibly breathed on by reputable tuners to unlock some (but not all) of the 1500’s potential. With a no-advisories MOT certificate taking you through to next February and a nod of approval from Fisher MG it’s a great base for shedloads of fun on either road or track. To go racing properly (as opposed to trackdaying) you’ll need an approved firewall in the back, but for road use the car is ready to go as is. Inveterate tinkerers will salivate at the prospect of keeping this older restoration on point and maybe going on from there to create something really special.

Earlier this year Philip accepted a bid of £9000 from someone who then didn’t bother to turn up and complete the deal. That bogus buyer’s loss could be your gain as Philip has set his The Market reserve at a level somewhat lower than that and we estimate the car will sell for between £6,000 - £9,000, being one of the best of.........

We always encourage viewings. This Midget is at the owner’s property in Bromley, Kent. Just click the ‘Contact Seller’ button at the top of the listing to arrange an appointment. Ahead of that, or at any time during the process, you’re more than welcome to ask any questions or jot down observations in the comments section below. You won’t be shocked to hear that our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ section will answer general questions that are frequently asked about how The Market works.

Also please note that we have a network of trusted suppliers with whom we work regularly and successfully: Classic & Sportscar Finance for purchase-financing, Thames Valley Car Storage for storing your car, AnyVan for transporting it, and Footman James for classic car insurance.

BORING, but IMPORTANT: Please note that whilst we at The Market always aim to offer the most descriptive and transparent auction listings available, we cannot claim they are perfect analyses of any of the vehicles for sale. We offer far greater opportunity for bidders to view, or arrange inspections for each vehicle thoroughly prior to bidding than traditional auctions, and we never stop encouraging bidders to take advantage of this. We do take a good look at the vehicles delivered to our premises for sale, but this only results in our unbiased personal observations, not those of a qualified inspector or other professional, or the result of a long test drive.

Additionally, please note that most of the videos on our site have been recorded using simple cameras which often result in 'average' sound quality; in particular, engines and exhausts notes can sound a little different to how they are in reality.