Let’s see: silver paint, black soft top, four cylinder engine (maybe, but probably not), black bucket seats, stick shift, similar windshield angle….
CC Outtake: Some Things Shared; Others Not
– Posted on February 14, 2013
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Curbside Classics Archives
Both a pile of fun but for totally different reasons (and terrains).
What’s silver and black and has 5 windshield wipers?
A pre-2008 Volvo XC70.
I should have added “and 8 wheels”. I should know by now that is impossible to outwit the Curbside Commentariat. Bravo, sir.
…steel ladder frame, blocky styling (aero be damned!), primitive mid-century architecture…
… plastic rear window (or do the Wranglers have glass back there now?)
The MG is a uni-body. It was the Spitfire that had a frame.
Plastic bumpers and epic body roll! (rubber-bumper MGs, arghhh)
Actually, while the ’70s BL makeover didn’t do the B any favours, I admit (dodging tomatoes) I sort of like them on the Midget. Made it look more substantial.
Round headlights.
The MG looked a whole lot better with chrome bumpers,being a 6″1′ Amazon they weren’t a lot of use to me!
No 4-cyl. engine in the current JK Wrangler.
And it’s a Rubicon, TJ Rubicons weren’t available with a 4cyl either.
Except for the USDM Unobtainium VM I4 2.8 Common Rail Diesel (CRD).
Damm You EPA & CARB! Damm You!
A 2 Door JK CRD Rubicon is atop short list of vehicles I’d actually endure payments on to have in my garage.
Ha! Nice catch.
Funny thing is, the Jeep is probably the higher-tech of the two. Might even get better mileage.
Yes.
A friend’s older brother had a Mini…bought for the usual reasons. A few months in he realized it was a mistake, and hated it for the 18 months it took to raise money to replace it.
I had a TJ Wrangler for a time…I preferred the YJ I later had; the TJ with its airbag dash felt too much like a shrunken minivan. But it was reliable, reasonably thrifty (once I pulled the front prop shaft when I found myself with long freeway commutes) and with the coil springs, comfy. A little bouncy; that’s to be expected with the short wheelbase.
…which was longer than the MG Midget’s, I’d bet.
The four cylinder was really all you needed, unless you planned on pulling stumps with it for a living. Especially when you consider the four with FI put out more power than the 304 V8 did in the Jeep CJ in the carbureted age. The four was…pretty common, although probably not the most common.
A long time ago a friend and I compared the length of his YJ and my chrome bumper MGB and found that they were almost identical.
Obviously a Midget is a bit smaller, and more recent Jeeps are a bit bigger.
I’m not really into small cars, but that Midget is pretty nice looking. And yes, as per previous times CC has discussed the chrome vs rubber bumper MGs, I vastly prefer the rubber ones as they make the cars look more modern. 🙂
A nice example of a Midget. I learned how to drive in the snow in one o’these one long ago December in the Orem, Utah area. The car’s flaws became even more evident after the introduction of the Fiat X1/9, a much more modern sports-car design. Not much to love about a car that required one to open a valve in the engine compartment to turn the heater on in the cold of Winter.