・1,380cc Skiptune engine with offset bores and fast road cam
・Rare round wheel-arch example
・Newly re-trimmed interior after full strip down and rustproofing
・Over £20,000 spent in last two years

Making classic cars more suited to modern road conditions is nothing new, with home tuners and professional converters going out of their way to make cars better for as long as the internal combustion engine has existed. 

But some modernisations and improvements are more successful than others, especially when they’re focused on the all-round usability of a car rather than just making it go faster. 

That’s exactly what the vendor of this 1972 MG Midget has done, having bought what was a fundamentally sound and solid roadster a couple of years ago. Since then, he’s committed to a program of gradual improvement, starting with the engine and working from there to make the car as capable as it can be in modern traffic. 

The list of the work he’s carried out is huge and mentioned in more detail below, but the overall effect is brilliant – here is a pretty round-wheelarch Midget from the era when the baby MG was arguably at its best to start with, tweaked and modified to be faster, safer and more refined than it ever was new, yet all carried out so subtly that without getting to know the car properly you could never tell it was any different from standard. It’s a clever and quite charming combination. 

The vendor is selling the MG as, having got it to the stage where he wants it, he’s ready for a new project – most likely a Vincent motorcycle.

BAJ 746L has had four previous keepers, all but the current one in the North East. The car was supplied new by British Leyland Dealer Parish’s of Scarborough to a Mrs Williams, who used it for a year and 3,000 miles before trading it in against a new car. The next owner, a Mr Dale, owned it for a long term and used the car for road rallying and hill-climbing, the story of which is kept on a handwritten document inside the car’s history file, which also includes some old photographs of it. 

According to the written history, the car was owned by Mr Dale and his brother for many years before being sold by a well-known auction house in Yorkshire in the mid 2010s, before passing to its current keeper. 

Although there is record of some body repairs carried out to the car it doesn’t appear to have been fully restored at all, just gradually improved and looked after throughout its life, with comprehensive rustproofing from new. It is presented in good overall condition, needing nothing mechanically or done to its interior, but with a few very minor areas of cosmetic improvement possible.

There is a huge file of paperwork with the MG including some early history and Mrs Williams’s original BL ‘Passport to Service’, though the bulk of the papers relate to the vendor’s own expenditure over the past two years – and there’s quite a lot of it. 

He has kept every receipt for every part he’s bought for the MG, right down to bolts and screws, and has kept a ledger of his expenditure, which equates to over £20,000 over his period of ownership.

Almost £4,000 of that was spent on the Skiptune engine, a competition-spec A-Series which we’ll come to in a minute, along with a conversion to a five-speed Ford Sierra gearbox and a full interior retrim. Those are just the highlights…

The car has a full UK V5C showing the name and address of the vendor.

Finished in British Leyland Flame Red, the Midget looks absolutely fantastic – the vibrant colour offset by black lower trim, a black roof and smart Rostyle wheels. 

Structurally, the car is excellent, with only a tiny bit of visible corrosion on the front lower corner of one wing. It has been frequently rust proofed throughout its life and the underside appears to be really good, especially around the bulkhead corners and rear spring hangers where Midgets are often prone. 

The paint is mostly good, but there are a couple of areas where it’s a bit flat, notably on the nearside front wing and offside rear quarter, where it’s also slightly crazed. There’s also a very slight lift in the boot lid shut line, though this is difficult to spot. 

The roof is nearly new and in good condition, save for a tiny crack in one of the quarter windows, while it also comes with a brand new tonneau cover and part-tonneau. The chrome is all very smart and well-presented.

A full stainless steel exhaust system is a reassuring and smart detail, while the owner has also built a detachable tow bar with built-in wiring, perfect for towing a camping unit or (in his case) a motorbike trailer.

Both the badges and the wheels have had the black inserts painted by hand, but it’s a neat job and overall the car presents really well. It’s not perfect, but it’s entirely usable and that’s exactly what this car is about.

 

The vendor has recently had the Midget retrimmed, with new carpets and seats throughout. During the retrim, the cabin was stripped completely and the vendor as included photos of the inside of the car minus its interior, demonstrating the inner condition of the floors and pedal box areas, which are in superb condition. New switches, a recommissioned (As-new!) rev counter and a new oil/temp gauge were all added. The seller has noted that the speedo is under reading and could do with being calibrated to the Ford gearbox underneath.

The same can be said of the cabin. The vinyl bucket seats and door cards are nearly new, as are the floor coverings and delightful wood-rimmed steering wheel, while the dashboard has been repainted in crackle black. 

In keeping with the usable theme of the car, it has been fitted with discreet LED under-dash lighting that gives it a useful lift in the dark. It also has inertia reel seatbelts for added safety and a modern four-speaker JVC stereo system with USB input and Bluetooth.

Here’s where things get really interesting, as it’s the mechanical specification that makes this car really stand out. 

The owner commissioned a bespoke 1,380cc Skiptune engine for the car to replace the non-original 1,275cc A-Series that was in it. The engine has offset bores and a fast road camshaft, complete with a reconditioned Weber DCOE 45 carburettor. He has covered around 1,500 miles in the car since the engine was installed, at a cost of over £4,000. After the running-in period, the car was dyno tested to show 82bhp at the wheels – a marked improvement over the standard 59bhp.

In order to gain more refinement, the original MG transmission was swapped for a five-speed Ford Type 9 gearbox from a Sierra, which gives the triple benefits of a full syncromesh, slick gearshift with self-centring and a much taller cruising ratio, transforming the Midget’s appeal as a cruising car. 

Other mechanical improvements include a new clutch, ported and polished Stage 2 cylinder head, Magnecor racing HT leads, electronic ignition and oil cooler, a new aluminium triple row radiator, a Gates thermostat, LCB manifold, upgraded front discs and pads, new rear hubs and brake cylinders and an SU fuel pump. It’s quite a list, and the associated receipts prove it wasn’t cheap!

This is a classic that’s just begging to be driven and enjoyed rather than used as a show pony. It looks great without being so immaculate that you’re scared to use it, yet it's wonderfully solid and – most importantly – has been subject to a full mechanical rebuild and not just an overhaul. 

It’s quick, it’s much more refined than a standard Midget and it’s enormous fun, yet from 10 paces you’d never even tell that it was much different from standard. And it’s that Q-Car performance, coupled to its all-round usability, that makes this modernised Midget a very, very cool thing indeed.