A prophetic statement about the MG Midget was printed in The Autocar magazine just after the launch of the first M-Type car from the newly-formed MG car building component of Morris Garages.
The magazine said the car would "make sports car history." That same statement is the Midget's epitaph today.
Power for the original light two-seater car was provided by an 847cc engine. The combination of looks and peppy performance proved such a success that a full new company was established for the new brand. Managing director Cecil Kimber, whose idea of a "car for motorsport and keen drivers" brought MG about, knew the value of racing and a works sports programme from 1930 quickly established the Midget as a powerful competitive force.
Specially-built cars helped, including a streamlined EX 120 aimed at setting a land speed record, a Double 12 which was a winner at Brooklands, and a supercharged C-Type. A more powerful six-cylinder version was introduced with a 1.3-litre Wolseley engine, named the F-Type but also called Magna, and a 4-seater was produced, the D-Type.
The all-encompassing motorsport programme ended in 1935 when Lord Nuffield sold MG Car Company to Morris Motors. The MG design studio at Abingdon was closed and all future work on MG cars became part of the Morris design operation.
The first Midget from this change was the TA, and the model was now larger and had a 1.3-litre engine and a two-seater roadster body. A limited motorsport programme to promote the new car involved a pair of works teams competing in trials and endurance events, one using standard 1.5- and 1.7-litre engines and the other powered by high-compression supercharged 1.3s. This boosted the TA road car in sales terms, and it was the most important MG right up to the war in 1939, though it was superseded by a more powerful TB just months before the conflict closed car production.
After the war, MG turned that TB into the TC, with the same angular style, and a two-seater only. An immediate success, in overseas markets it became one of the important foreign currency earners to a cash-strapped Britain. In the early '50s, with the TD Midget ageing visibly, a merger between MG and Austin into the British Motor Corporation brought a replacement TF, initially with a 1250cc engine and later a 1500cc. It wasn't well accepted but in style alone it represented the last of the original MG Midgets.
BMC's next foray into sports cars was the Austin-Healey Sprite, which appeared in 1959 and was powered by a 948cc Austin engine with power boosted by the addition of twin carburettors. It gained the Frog-Eye nickname because of the placing of its headlights. When the Sprite Mark II came along in 1961, a version was soon rebadged as a new MG Midget. In 1965 the Mark III added even more power in the form of the 1275cc engine from the Mini Cooper S, which alone would guarantee to make it interesting. The Sprite and the Midget continued in parallel until 1970, when the Austin-Healey car was dropped and the MG had the field to itself.
Well, almost. The Triumph Spitfire was also in the now British Leyland stable and through the sixties there was other in-house competition from the MGA and MGB larger sports cars.
Though not realised at the time, the Mark IV version of the Midget introduced in 1974 was to be the last. Its powerplant was the 1493cc four from the Spitfire, partly because that engine was still permissable in a US market increasingly concerned with emissions. The 1974 makeover also saw the replacement of the traditional chrome bumpers with plastic ones, again for American market reasons. But British Leyland was in financial difficulties, and instead of developing a next generation MG Midget the company poured any available resources into the Triumph brand.
The Midget was finally discontinued as a model in 1979 but remains eternally a motoring legend.
- BRIAN BYRNE