Take one classic, once a day
Should a blast in an old car be available on the NHS? Mike thinks so…
1977 MG MIDGET 1500
‘Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the Midget is?’ The answer, once I’d opened the garage door, turned out to be ‘somewhere behind that load of old tat’.
Said tat included a folding bicycle, several (mostly empty) paint tins, two boxes of paperwork and a deceased vacuum cleaner. With that lot out of the way, I was astounded to find PCB’s dipstick fully oiled up to maximum and even more amazed when the engine fired the first time of asking – after four months of inactivity and not a trickle-charger in sight. The smooth sewing machine idle was particularly welcome, given the car’s occasional truculence in this respect last year.
Regular readers will know that I finally got a host of niggles sorted towards the end of last year, so little things like being able to wind the windows up and down and having wing mirrors that stay put once I’ve adjusted them still felt like a novelty as I blasted west, revelling in the blue skies, sunshine and the Midget’s barking exhaust.
The mysterious – but extremely faint – whistling noise that I noticed just before I tucked it away was still there at speed, but didn’t seem to be affecting performance, so I kept the hammer down, enjoying a friendly dice with a Daihatsu Copen, a car that I’ve long considered to be the Midget’s spiritual successor.
I stopped briefly at Hall’s Garage in Morton, Lincolnshire to book it in for a service and MoT – and have a mutual moan with owner Steve about the cancellation of this year’s MGLive! – and was off again, this time revisiting the empty country lanes that I used to frequent when I lived in the area.
And it was during this meander down memory lane that I suddenly came over all... emotional. I don’t mean that I had to pull over so I could have a good cry – it was more an unexpectedly strong sense of delight at being back behind the wheel of a car that I’ll have owned, incredibly, for 16 years come September.
You probably know this already, but if modern-day issues such as Brexit, climate change and knife crime are getting you down, don’t wait for an excuse to get out there in your classic – make one up. I guarantee that you’ll feel a whole lot better. I know I did.