1973 MG Midget

Here we have a fully-fledged, road-registered hillclimb-cum-sprint car that has had all the hard work and expense already lavished on it. Four short races and fewer than 500 miles have shaken the car down and bedded it in. It is now a turn-key café racer of the highest order.

The bodyshell was comprehensively restored by the previous owner and then the current owner fitted fibreglass wings, boot and bonnet to save weight. 

It is described as immaculate.

The front grille is a handmade honeycomb item and suits the Midget perfectly. A new hood and half-tonneau complete the exterior.

The driver is kept firmly in place thanks to a Sabelt four-point safety harness that is certified for competition use until 2019 - and if it all goes horribly wrong, the Safety Devices half roll cage should help keep you far safer than a standard car ever could ever hope to, with or without that padded dash.

The engine was built from the ground up by renowned expert Peter May. The first step was to bore out the block to 1460cc and reface it before drilling and tapping it to take two extra cylinder head studs for added strength.

The engine was then carefully rebuilt with all the good stuff: fully floating gudgeon pins; ARP rod bolts; a lightweight steel flywheel; billet camshaft, Omega lightweight forged pistons; Piper Vernier chain drive; and a big-valve cylinder head with roller tipped rockers. The whole thing was carefully balanced and then assembled with more than the usual level of care and attention to detail.

It breathes through a Weber 45 DCOE carb fed by a Facet uprated competition fuel pump, and a Maniflow LCB exhaust manifold and a two-inch competition exhaust system. Cooling is delivered via a twin-core radiator and electric fan plus an oil cooler and one-litre oil catch tank. 

The result is an ultra-reliable 130bhp and a bill that nudged five figures. 

But power is nothing without control, something the owner understands very well, so the rest of the car was built up as carefully as the engine. So the lucky new owner will be able to exploit all those horses via a fully rebuilt straight-cut, close-ratio gearbox courtesy of Competition Transmission Services Ltd., a 7.5-inch rally clutch, and a Quaife ATB limited slip differential with rare, 4.8:1 gearing and competition half-shafts. The power finally reaches the tarmac via black Minilite 13-inch wheels and sticky Yokohama A045 tyres.

The suspension is lowered and polybushed Frontline front and rear, boasting a traction link and anti-tramp bar at the back and an anti-roll bar at the front. The result is “phenomenal road holding in the wet and dry”.

The brakes are four-pot alloy calipers up front plus braided hoses. Yep, it stops as well as it goes.

The restoration is fully documented and receipts are available to support the work undertaken, see below for some of the paperwork covering the major items as well as images of the body restoration.

Building this Midget set the owner back more than £26,000, so the price – at much less than less than half that sum – represents considerable value for money.

As an almost brand new, highly competitive yet road-registered competition car, we can see this Midget being used for fun and racing, with the odd track day thrown in for good measure. As an alternative to a classic MX-5, this vehicle offers depreciation-proof motoring in an ultra-cool package. 

The only drawback we can see is that you will need to pay another £25 to get it registered here on the mainland (the car is currently in Jersey but used to be registered on the mainland this is a very simple process). The current owner has even agreed to bring it across to the UK if the buyer needs so hardly a major inconvenience in order to obtain one of the best MG midgets available!

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