MG Midget

When I left CCW, back in August 2014, the notion I might soon return never even crossed my mind. However, I’m not the first staffer to learn that you are unwittingly fitted with an invisible – and extremely long – bungee cord when you join this newspaper. And it’s damn near impossible to remove it.

And that, by association, applies to our old cars. My MG Midget did very little during my sabbatical year – it has many qualities, but it’s a lousy tow car – and didn’t see a whole lot more action the following year.

Then came the clarion call to return to the fold – and all hell broke loose.

Given how few miles it had covered, my initial report on PCB, back in January, had to revert to a trip down Memory Lane, but this state of affairs didn’t last long.

Within weeks, it was pitched into a head-to-head battle with news ed Scullion’s MX-5, shortly after which it joined the CCW team on a wintry pilgrimage to, er, California. The California in question may have been on the east coast of England rather than the west coast of America, but the old boy distinguished himself magnificently, piling on nearly 200 miles in less than a day. Read more about that in our April entry opposite.

It was the same story a few weeks later when I marked Drive-it-Day with a sunny, topdown blast to Hunstanton, and then again in summer when I joined editor Simister on an all-MG cruise to Silverstone for MGLive!. Even a rear tyre letting go less than ten minutes from home couldn’t dampen my high spirits that day.

It’s currently enjoying a wellearned winter hibernation in its new and much bigger garage, but if it thinks it’s going to be taking it easy in 2018, then it can think again – I love driving it too much. Did someone mention a trip to the Peak District?