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Of course you ask yourself why in heavens name a MG Geoff? Well, ... this will become a long story!
One day in august 1996 my wife and I decided to buy a new Peugeot 205 or 106. After the decision I went to a couple of garages to see what I could get for our old 205, called Genevieve. But then, the catastrophic started. I went to my own dealer and I saw something completely different.
A little, yellow convertible MG. It was standing there and my curiosity grew. But a man often has a wife......, little hope was left. Why would she want to have such an unpractical car. That evening I told her about the cars I had seen (made a quite satisfying ride with a Peugeot 106 1.4 XR). By the way I mentioned that little yellow one. To my great surprise she reacted quite positive. So the next day we made an appointment for a test-drive.
It was sunny, warm weather (the gods were with me?) . Because I had the day off, I made the first test-drive in the early afternoon and found it a strange experience. After a test-drive of one hour I drove back home in my Genevieve and thought I drove a lorry. Jesus, I never thought I could ever have fun in driving again. I hated driving for years (have you experienced the daily traffic jams in Holland - you would understand). I picked up my wife at five and together we made the second test drive. After 2 miles we run out of fuel, oops. Standing in the middle of nowhere alongside a channel , my wife said, with a grin, if we decide to take this car, this is goanna be our future. After I found a phone, we had to wait for more than an hour for the fuel. After that we had a wonderful drive. Unfortunately my wife wore a white shirt that day and the condition of the seat belts was according to the age of almost twenty years. So when my wife got out of the car , she had suddenly a black and white shirt. But even that didn't put her off (can you imagine??? as Victor Meldrew would say).
The same evening I spent hours behind my PC searching the Net for MG and especially MG Midget information. The next day I new more about MG's than my dealer. A week of agony followed. To do or not to do was the question. We needed the MG for daily use. In that week even my wife tried to drive the MG and she liked it! Future was looking much brighter. Then we started to bargain with the dealer.
It was 1977 MG Midget with chrome bumpers, imported from California in 1994. The car had undergone body work in 1994 including a complete respray and new rubber seals all around. The body was sound and the interior looks quite reasonable to me (later I heard that it was in a mint condition for an American car).
Searching the internet I get more and more confused. It looks like a late MK III but had square wheel arches, but hadn't a MK III a 1500cc engine? End of August 1996 I bought two books at a vintage vehicle fair. Original Sprite & Midget by Terry Horler and MG Midget and AH Sprite from Porter. My confusion grew. According to the good reference in Horler's book it must be a 1500 Rubber Bumper. But where was the rubber? Finally I heard about Rubber Bumper to Chrome Bumper conversions, so there came a little light into the dark. Even month later someone told me that the complete front and both front wings were original MK III. A quite rigorous approach, but after an inspection of the front members I discover the reason why: in the past there must been an accident, because the tops were rippled a bit. This lifts another tip of the curtain.
So here came the specs:
| Model | MG Midget 1500 |
| Build in | April 1977 |
| Color body | Chartreuse Yellow |
| Color interior | Black |
| Remarks | Converted Rubber Bumper |
Lots of things still had to be repaired.
On a Tuesday we finally bought the MG. Because of the re-pares we still didn't got the car . We negotiated that Geoff get a full MoT and a new hood (the old one had several repairs and holes in it) instead of dealing a shortage of the asked price. Afterwards it was a wise decision. Geoff got a complete service with new oil. spark-plugs, greasing all necessary points and the MG Specialist which carry out the service found some loose nuts at the rear springs, renew the front brake pipes, changed the brake fluid and replaced the steering rack for exchange unit.
The car made us smile definitely every time we looked at it. And there was one person who made us smile every week. It was Geoff Hamilton. You will think who is this? We are keen gardeners you must know and we are addicted to BBC's "Gardeners World". The presenter was Geoff Hamilton. When you had seen the program, you just wanted to dash into the Garden and start right away. His way of talking about plants and the stuff around was very , ......... But Geoff died in August and we were devastated. We loved that man, it was as if we had lost a dear friend. After we heard the terrible news we went into the Garden and had a good cry. Maybe sound stupid but we are both sure that a lot of people felt that way.
So this is how our Midget got his name and so Geoff is still with us in a way.