CarBrandLogos archive · MG · 1961
A Sprite with an octagon badge, and the cheapest way into a British roadster.
Discover the storyPhoto: Hugh Llewelyn · CC BY-SA 2.0
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the MG Midget, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
There is no polite way to describe the Midget's origins. It is an Austin-Healey Sprite with a different grille and badges, launched in 1961 once BMC decided two brands could sell the same small roadster to two sets of loyalists. The pair were known as Spridgets for the rest of their lives.
MGMidget RWA · No machine-readable author provided. Dorowe~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). · Public domain
02
What made it work was that the underlying car was good. Unitary construction kept it light, the A-series four was cheap to tune, and the whole thing cost little enough that a young owner could race it, crash it and rebuild it. Capacity crept up through the Marks, from 948cc to 1098 and then 1275, and the doors gained wind-up windows in 1964.
1976 mg midget arp · User Arpingstone on en.wikipedia · Public domain
03
The last change was the least popular. From 1974 the Midget took a 1493cc Triumph-derived engine and thick black polyurethane bumpers to meet American impact rules, along with a raised ride height that spoiled the handling. It carried on that way until Abingdon wound the line down in 1979. Cheap entry to open-top motoring turned out to be harder to replace than it looked, and nothing did for years afterwards.
MGMidget Concept · dave_7 · CC BY-SA 2.0
At a glance
Produced
1961–1979Engine
MkI: 948 Body
2-door roadsterTechnical specification
Badge at launch
This is the marque emblem that accompanied the MG Midget's era. The full identity timeline is documented in the brand archive.
Explore the logo history →From the journal
Contemporaries from the 1960s
Spotted something wrong on this page? Send us the correction — with a source, and we will fix it. How this site is written.
