On Fri, 7 Jan 1994, Ken Neff wrote:
> BTW, are there any advantages/disadvantages to the 1971-1974 Midget with
> round rear wheel arches? The arches seem to be the only real differences
> between this car and earlier (post-1967) Spridgets.
>
I intended a simple answer, and ended up with a lecture on Spridget
styling. It is a professorial disease; can't say "good morning" in less
than 50 min.
I suppose round wheel arches were introduced for the sake of change. I
have heard they were discontinued because they were not as strong as the
square arches. I'm not especially fond of them because they have the same
(round) shape as the front wheel cutouts, but completely different lip
formation, which looks odder to me than totally different front and rear
arches.
Apropos Spridget looks, lotsa people put bugeye fronts on square
Spridgets. I've always thought a better approach would be to put later
conventional front sheet metal on a bugeye body. There was a prototype
similar to this, which I think looked good, created during the redesign of
the bugeye to make Mark II Sprite/Mark I Midget. Supposedly MG were
assigned the task of redesigning the rear, and Healey were assigned the
front, and they were told not to talk to each other, which may explain how
the rear fenders ended up with flares and the fronts were plain. I think
the prototype was one of those by Healey who was working on the front.
What a way to do business!
When the bugeye was current, there was a "Sebring" fiberglass front with
conventional headlights and bugeye grille that changed the bugeye from
cute to pretty (IMHO). I would love to have one of those Sebring bonnets.
I have a couple of spare bonnets, and some day I intend to convert one to
a replica of the Sebring front, JFTHOI (just for the hell of it).
Ray Gibbons, Burlington, VT.
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