) once married and the children came along.Anyway, here it is:
It has been uprated with a 1275 c.c. engine, later gearbox and front disk brakes, but comes with all the original parts. As a Mk II, its considerably earlier than my old 1971/74 Spridget. Although a little scruffy it does drive and I can't wait to do so. It has been in this family for the past 35 years, always garaged and spent much of its time in New Mexico, so there is very little rust. So it should at some point make a very good basis for a full strip down and rebuild - but not until some of the other projects get completed.
What I find amazing is that when I was at University back in the summer of 1976, I sold my first car - a 1968 Triumph Herald and bought a 1937 Morris 8 tourer, which seemed unbelievably ancient. It was an incredible 39 years old. But this Sprite is actually 49 years old, but doesn't seem anything like that - I guess because I grew up with them when they were new. Funny how time plays tricks with your mind.
So a question - has anyone got any experience of early Sprites/Midgets? I gather that the mechanics share much commonality with the Austin A40 and Morris 1000. Incredibly, having owned well over 100 cars in my time, I have never owned a post-war Minor - yet!
). This got me thinking about our Minors - things like the brake mods (Bowden or hydraulics) in particular. The McEvoy has been converted to hydraulics and, as it is supposed to be good for 70 mph, does it make any sense to revert it to cables and pulleys? In this case, I don't have the original cable system (although I did collect a set of new pulleys, etc. from Ian Harris at Prescott). The decision is more difficult as the McEvoy is considerably more rare and historic than the Sprite. On the other hand, who around Seattle (apart from the Bormans 
) is going to look at the Mc Evoy brakes and tell me they aren't correct. Americans don't have anoraks 