Rusty But Trusty

Just like there’s a lot to be said for the purity of the pair of pickups featured here recently, or a simple people’s car like a Mini or Fiat 500, the simplicity of a bottom-end sports car is also really appealing. Simple electrical system, simple engine, and not many amenities to go wrong mean you should be spending most of your time driving, and when you do need to fix things, you can do it with a very simple set of hand tools. At least that’s the theory. Check out this 1973 MG Midget for sale for $2000 in Hood River, OR.

Unfortunately, the seller doesn’t show any pictures of the full body. What you do see is a complete looking engine compartment, what’s probably a cheap repaint, and some rust, but a generally decent looking car with potential to be a carefree driver (the carefree part being more about how you can drive it without worrying about stone chips, parking lot dents, etc.). Of course, before you can get there, you’ll need a new battery and new ignition – whether that’s a new switch or new distributor is left to your imagination.

The seats look pretty decent, and the interior seems complete, but some carpeting seems to be missing, and there might be issues with the door panels. Note the apparent overspray on the door strikers. The floor looks to have some surface rust, and the top seems intact from this side, but is damaged around the quarter window on the passenger side.

Blue/yellow Oregon plates mean this has been a West Coast car for quite a while, and while the 1972-74 Midgets are more damage-prone in an accident, they are also the most attractive with their split rear bumpers and round rear wheel wells. Given the likely non-starting condition, you’ll probably want to bargain on doing some maintenance catch-up work, but all in all it should be hard to go wrong for the price of admission.

Tags: british, Feature, mg, midget, sports car

This entry was posted on June 4, 2015 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.