by Auntieroll » Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:05 pm
Hello all,
I had the pleasure of owning the first true "production" Midas,which I purchased from a man called John Smith who was a Chef at RAF Hendon.
AFAIR, the chassis# was 10002,the registration number was definitely JLY 862 V,colour was red with satin black "panda eyes" around the headlights,standard 998cc Mini engine,wheels were white Minilite copies.
Owing to an expanding family the car was sold to a chap called John Sorrie who lived just outside Aberdeen and was an engineer working on submersibles/ROV's for a company(IIRC,its nearly 30 years ago after all!!) called Osprey Electronics.
That was a sad day ,watching someone else drive off in the little Midas,I could still fancy another one,even after 28 years.
I still have two abiding memories of the car,the first is of the day I picked it up from its first owner,the front brakes were way out of adjustment and negotiating the busy North Circular en route for sunny Norfolk was a case of driving a couple of pumps of the brake pedal ahead! LOL
The other was of the occasion that I first saw the magic "ton" on a downhill stretch of the M6,there was all of a sudden a deafening low frequency "buzz",this proved to be the door frames flexing,certainly made me concentrate!! This characteristic was reproduced several times after that,with the difference that no underwear change was required on the subsequent occasions.
The first Midas,which I was told was a development car ,was comprehensively written off after leaving the road somewhere in darkest Wales,the driver (IIRC,something to do with either HD's family or an employee)thankfully escaped relatively unscathed ,the car distinctly less so.
The chassis # of this vehicle would have been 10001.
Hope this helps,
Mike