How to get your Midas on the road again....Cheat!

[kelvink]

As many of you will know I have a white Mk2 I'm doing some radical rebuilding work on and consequently I'm feeling a bit guilty turning up at events without a Midas. Some of you will have seen it, as I did take it to Stoneleigh on the back of my trailer last year and you'll have had a preview of what I'm doing with it. It's been progressing slowly as I keep having more and more radical ideas. I'm glad to say though that I'm not totally mad with what I'm doing as Alistair has seen what I'm up to and has helped steer me in the right direction now and then.

So I had yet another radical idea which I thought I ought to check out with him a few weeks ago when I came across someone in Halfords who had actually heard of a Midas and said a freind of his had a one which he thought was a Gold and was not sure what to do with it. My Favourite Midas !!!! Give him my contact details I said straight away and let him know he can join the Midas Owners Club.

Well nothing happened and I heard nothing. Then out of the blue I got this phone call from a guy who wanted to know where he could get spare parts for a Midas Gold to get it through an MOT as he heard I was the expert...... Eh? what? me an expert? I think you want Alistair Courtney at Midas Cars I said. Then the chappy told me he had recently got the car and didn't know where he could get bits for it and help if he needed it. Oh are you the lucky guy who's bought the car in Crewkeren then? You lucky sod I really wanted to find out if that was for sale as it's my favourite Midas. I told him.

Apparantly no he'd just 'inherited' it from his dad and didn't know what to do with it but you can come and have a look at it if you like....


Well temptation got the better of me and I went to go and see the car the next morning in the rain and made him an offer despite it looking in desperate need of a lot of attention and a fair amount of love and care too. So we both hummed and errred and hummed and said we'd have to think about it a bit more..

Anyways I thought I'd speak to Alistair as he usually talks a reasonable amount of sense when it comes to Midas cars and I began to see a good excuse to justify me buying another Midas

It all makes perfect sense and here goes:-
1. It's my favourite Midas as you've probably found out already
2. It had an MOT and tax (well it had an MOT on the day I saw it)
3. It meant I could turn up at events in a Midas
4. It meant I could get on with my Mk2 in a less desperate mood as I would be driving a Midas while I rebuilt one
5. Once I'd done my Mk2 I could then drive that and restore the Gold Coupe
6. The clincher the car I have been driving which I'm going to use in my grand plan for my great Midas idea needs an MOT next week and it's a bit silly spending a shed load of money replacing parts on a car I'm going to rip apart to put into a Midas

There you go 6 excellent reasons to have bought this........







In all her dull tired and weary splendour but you've got to just love that shape. Don't you...? The photos actually make her look none too bad but I can assure you the gel coat is very very tired and the interior well maybe I'll fess up to that later, though it does have a radio (note I don't say stereo and there's a good reason for that)

[DavidL]

I can still remember the mixture of emotions I felt when the Gold appeared, the year after I completed my Bronze if I remember correctly.

I so wanted one, but having spent so much building the Bronze, I wasn't able to consider selling it and buying/building a Gold.

I preferred the shape, I liked the extra room inside, I loved its looks. And crashed Metros were so easy to get hold of - I started with one to build the Bronze and found the other Mini stuff in scrapyards.

But like you, I've got my Gold now. And now I've managed to sell my motorbike, I should be able to buy it what it needs to put it back where it belongs - on the road.

See you out there...

[Stuart]

Nice, and a big bonus is that you don't have a sunroof fitted, and it has the later style dash, which looks so much better than the early ones.

It should go well with that Land Rover engine in or perhaps that red car is the donor?

[Hans Efde]

Fantastic. I wish I had the money and room to buy a Gold coupe as well. It is exactly like our first Midas we bought 20 years ago (time flies) and still smile about the adventures we had with it. I love my convertible, but the coupe has something very special. Even with a standard engine they are so quick. So low by the ground it felt like I was doing Mach1 with no effort at all.
And ofcourse totally practical. We used to buy garden stuff and hay for the rabbits and just stuffed it in the back. Once I put 2 10 feet trees in it. The people watching thought they were tricked in a candid camera show because it seemed impossible to do.
I hope you enjoy this little beast.

[kelvink]

Mixed emotions are indeed a feature of this car. I have a warm glow from owning the Midas Gold Coupe I always admire when I see one alongside the You must have been off your rockers to have actually paid money for such a heap feelings of what on Earth have I done!

The best way to look at it is as a complete kit and donor vehicle package. When you consider things this way it's actually a bargain Plus there's not the hassle of SVA and registration as it's all been done. So basically it's a strip it down and rebuild it job..... Only my intention is to actually do that later and just get on and drive this while I completely rebuild my Mk2. I did wash it and give it a quick trundle up and down at my Workshop on Sunday and it did make me laugh though it was the madness of it all I was laughing at and not the joy of driving a precision sports car. Ooooh no, everything is sloppy, smells of mildew and rattles. But hey it's a 25 year old kit built on a Metro that was scrap when it was built so what should anyone expect? OK OK OK yes for the money I could have bought a nice modern fuel injected air conditioned sports coupe that people wouldn't laugh at and would happily sit in front of my parent's house and not be told to go and park down the lane so the neighbours didn't see when I visited.

So I may as well show you some more photos now so take a deep breath and hold back the expletives for a moment at least. Here goes....


It had been quite smartly trimed (many years ago)


See it's got a radio and a sports steering wheel.


There is some fluff left on some parts of the carpet. Well I think it is carpet but it might be roofing felt I suppose?


errr Ok the sun visors don't work but hey it's got a roof.


I found the speaker ! It's got one


And behind those lose flappy things there's a heater switch


No expense was spared it's even got some quality polish. Shame it hadn't been used though...


While it's wet it can look shiny in some places

So, the intention is to make it legal MOT it drive it and hopefuly give it some love and attention to restore it to it's original glory or maybe even better. You see I do have some special plans for it but for the moment there's a lot of other work to be done. Still it shouldn't rust!

[Stuart]

A Midas is certainly an irrational choice, we choose them on looks alone, and looks can be deceptive. Still with the right mods they can be made into a good car.

The paint on those pedals is rather good.

What would have been a factory trim of panels has soon gone shoddy, they either got worse at trimming cars, or the ones I've seen were kept out of the summer heat.

Yes rig a sprinkler system up and you'll always have a shiny car, or you could only go out in the rain, now there's a plan.

Do you know what engine it has? a lowly 1275 or an MG Metro one, guessing you may not know what diff it has either?

Oh and that's a very nice classic radio, probably pre-dates the era of the car by quite a bit though.

[Hans Efde]

The paint on those pedals is rather good.

Yes and that can be stripped straight away because they are not modified. For a proper throw both the brake and clutch pedal need to be cut and rewelded.

[Stuart]

Indeed, very true Hans, that standard pedal length is completely wrong in a Midas.

[b1zbaz]

Turtle wax colour magic will sort that gel coat right out its awesome I want it

[Hans Efde]

I had a burgundy car that had been painted. But also the paint faded. When I went to a show I used sunflower oil to rub it in. It would give a lovely shine for a few days. Much quicker that a polish job, about 10 minutes for the whole car.