A Midget With a Giant's Success

            The 1960s were something of a heyday for British sports cars. Small, quick little two seaters seemed to be popping up all over that island nation and were soon invading the USA the same as Britain’s pop music.

            One of the most iconic of these little sporty cars was the MG Midget. From 1961 through 1979 more than 226,000 Midgets were sold throughout the world, making it one of Britain’s most successful automotive exports. Not a midget at all.

            MG was founded in the early 1920s by Cecil Kimber, the general manager of an automobile dealership called Morris Garage. The first cars to come out of Morris Garage were Morris autos that had been re-bodied. But soon Kimber took the initials of the dealership and created the MG badge.

            They turned out a successful series of two seat roadsters, many of which performed quite well in races around Europe. Many of their greatest successes wore the Midget name, beginning in 1928 with the M-Type Midget, the least expensive British sports car of its era. More Midgets followed through the mid-1950s when MG became part of a larger corporation.

In 1952 they were absorbed by the British Motor Corporation, a company that was the result of a merger between Austin Healey and the Nuffield Organization which owned the Morris Motor Company as well as MG and a few others.

            When it was decided to bring back the Midget name in the 1960s, management at BMC turned to a car they already had in their stables. The Austin Healey Sprite had begun rolling off the line in 1958 and was exactly the basis for what the company was looking for as a new Midget.

            All through the 60s the MG badged Midget and the Austin Healey Sprite were basically twin cars rolling off the same assembly line. The MG was the one that primarily sold in North America and for that reason, racked up the greatest number of cars on the road. By 1970 BMC dropped the Sprite in favor of the more iconic brand and saw that car made through 1979.

            The MGs shown here were all from the same car show and represented well why that car continues to be so popular with British car enthusiasts.