Page 16 - Beep Beep May 2023

This is the story of a 1970 MG Midget owned by RCC member Brian Davies. Featured in the latest edition of ‘Australian Car Mechanic’ magazine. www.mechanics-mag.com.au
Our thanks to Ian Curry who supplied the text and photos with his permission to use in our Beep Beep issue. Please be aware that the article and photos are copyright to Iain Curry.
RETURNING HERO
Words and photos: Iain Curry
Brian Davies has treated himself to an MG Midget for tinkering and weekend drives, revisiting a model he bought new as a young man.
Affordable roadsters are depressingly rare these days. In decades past a young chap (or young miss) could reasonably expect to afford a new or near-new drop-top sporting car to get their kicks. And how about the choice? Think MG B, Triumph Spitfire, Alfa and Fiat Spiders, Austin Healey Sprite and the Lotus Elan. Top down, wind in the hair, manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive. Golden times indeed.
Today, your affordable new roadster list begins and ends with the Mazda MX-5. Even then, the cheapest one is over $40k to drive-away. Regardless, young folk of today with such disposable tend to buy a dual-cab ute, not a sportscar. With diesel engine, auto gearbox and cornering ability of a whale, they truly don’t know what they’re missing out on.
Let 81-year-old Brian Davies be your inspiration. As a kid and then teenager in Timaru on New Zealand’s South Island, he was beguiled by his cousin’s MG TF and then MG B. “When you look at brands like MG and Jaguar, for me it brings back the glory days of motor racing,” he says. Still smitten by these old Brits, Brian’s days are filled with tinkering and driving the gorgeous little 1970 MG Midget he bought a few years ago.
It's a truly tiny two-door roadster – shorter than a modern-day Fiat 500 – and not one you’d normally expect an octogenarian to enjoy getting in and out from. “I have to shoehorn myself in, but this inconvenience is short lived by the time you hit the highway,” he explains. “It’s a car that puts a smile on my face every time I put the key in the ignition. Its power-to-weight ratio is phenomenal, and while its ride and handling’s quite abrupt, it’s like driving a motorised skateboard.”
The Midget has seen Brian’s life with cars come almost full circle. His first was a Morris Minor
850cc OHV, then a Standard Vanguard, before moving to Australia in 1964 and buying and restoring a 1954 MG TF. “I was good mechanically, but I needed help from a cabinet maker friend to fabricate up new framework where the wood suffered from dry rot,” he says. By this stage he’d developed quite the affinity for BMC products, and moved on to an Austin A40 Farina. Brian was working for distributors of BMC spare parts, making his hobby easier. His motor sport enthusiasm saw him become the go-to man for BMC’s sports division, looking after Austin Healey, MG and Mini Cooper.
He relocated to Papua New Guinea and did up a Hillman Minx and a “mouldy Mk Ford Zephyr,” before a return to New Zealand saw him buy his first new car: a British Racing Green MG Midget 1100cc, optioned with luxuries such as wire wheels, a heater and a radio.
“I’d lusted after an MG B, but the Midget was far more affordable,” he explains. “But after owning it for six months, I was contacted by a solicitor whose wife hated their new MG B and wanted to swap it for my Midget plus a bit of cash. I put myself into debt, but there I was
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