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See Homepage. This page: A visitor to the site remembers his sporty little 1960s MG.

Lenham Midget.

Gary dropped me a note, after stumbling across a photo of a Lenham GT seen at the Goodwood Revival. He used to own a Lenham Midget, and sent the following over:

"I found your site on a Google search, I was looking for information and tips for when I decide to start restoring a 1963 Renault Floride S I have had in my garage for over twenty years. Didn't find out a thing, no doubt all the information is there but I got distracted looking at your galleries of photographs of beautiful old cars. You have a great site here but you must know that.

The point of this email was raised when I saw a picture of a Lenham GT. I used to own a Lenham Midget, in fact it was my first car ever, (registration number 9872KP), cost £195 but sold for £40 when it started falling to bits. Wish now that I had kept it. As the name suggests, it was an MG Midget with most of the bodywork cut off, just leaving the floor, engine bulkhead and doors. All the rest was fibreglass and so very light with an extremely low centre of gravity. The engine was standard and had a leaky front end seal which meant that the underside was uniformly coated in oil which was stopping it from rusting.

However, on a trip from Southend on Sea to Romford one evening the Midget's oil ran out, the engine overheated and blew the core plugs. I left it parked at the back of a garage forecourt overnight and bought some replacement core plugs the next morning. As one had to be accessed between the back of the engine and the bulkhead, about 2 inches, I ended up aralditing it in place. It remained like that for over 3 months until I got round to removing the engine and stripping it. When I took the big-end bearings out I was astonished to see that they still had the white metal coating on the inside. I think it proved what a robust if not indestructible engine the MG Midget had. I had great fun in the car, as there was quite a bit of storage space behind the seats. I used to go sub-aqua diving with a friend very often down in Devon and Cornwall. We'd just throw a tent and all our diving gear in the back and shoot off there for a weekend or so, whatever took our fancy. Acceleration was rapid, especially after I fitted a transistor ignition system. Top speed was about 105 mph (allegedly). I strongly suspect the car is still about but I have no idea where. I have marked your site as a favourite and no doubt will be referring to it very frequently."

Lenham GT

Shown below a Lenham GT, similar to the road-going car that Gary once owned.

Lenham MG GT

Do you have an interesting motoring memories that you'd like to see featured on oldclassiccar??? please let me know if so - see motoring memories for details.

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