Good morning! Since Halloween is near, I decided to take another stab at finding some spooky cars. And where better to look than in the backyard of the master of horror himself, Stephen King? I aimed my browser at Maine and found a couple of convertibles that are bound to keep you up at night.
Yesterday’s cars weren’t all that scary, unless you fear being strangled by a robotic seat belt. I guess I’m not surprised that the Integra won; people love those things. I had a bad experience with one, but it was more to do with circumstance and a bad deal than with the car itself, but I guess I can see why they’re so popular.
Me, I’d rather have the little 323, though. I just love the BG platform, and I’ve long been a fan of Mazda’s manual shifter feel. And there’s something really appealing about that generation of 323’s slightly dumpy styling, like it’s not even trying to be cool and it doesn’t care what you think. I admire that.
Now then: I don’t know about any of you, but I feel like my pop-culture upbringing was in large part defined by horror. Forget John Hughes; I was all about John Carpenter. I grew up watching cheesy old horror movies with Son of Svengoolie on WFLD in Chicago, talking older friends and cousins into taking me to see Freddy and Jason movies, and of course, raiding my mom’s shelf of Stephen King novels.
I’ve been a gearhead for even longer than I’ve been a horror fan, and I picked up on something early on in my explorations of Stephen King’s work: there are a lot of cars in there. I mean, there’s Christine, of course, but mechanical difficulties with cars are plot points in both The Shining, and, more substantially, Cujo. A car that acts as an interdimensional portal is the basis for the underrated From A Buick 8. Not to mention short stories like “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut,” “Dolan’s Cadillac,” “Trucks,” “Uncle Otto’s Truck,” “The Road Virus Heads North,” and some others I’m probably forgetting. I can draw only one conclusion from this: Stephen King is a bit of a car guy. If I ever meet him, I intend to ask him if I’m right.
It’s only fitting, then, that we celebrate spooky season with a couple of scary sports cars for sale in Maine. Cover your eyes and peek through your fingers; let’s take a look.
1978 MG Midget – $3,200
Engine/drivetrain: 1.5-liter overhead valve inline 4, four-speed manual, RWD
Location: Brooks, ME
Odometer reading: 82,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
“This is the way the world ends,” wrote T.S. Eliot, “Not with a bang but a whimper.” He could have been talking about British Leyland, the massive conglomerate formed when the already bloated British Motor Holdings merged with Leyland Motors in 1968. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but by 1978 when this poor MG Midget staggered off the assembly line, half of British Leyland’s brands were dead or dying, labor strikes were the rule rather than the exception, and quality control was a lip-service idea at best.
Worse, the Midget’s original Austin A-series engine, a defining part of its character since 1961, had been replaced by a Triumph engine, the same 1493 cubic centimeter engine as the Triumph Spitfire. In Britain, that meant a bump in power and performance, but here in the US, the smog-strangled Triumph engine made all of fifty horsepower. This one may do a little better; it looks like its Zenith-Stromberg carb has been replaced with a Weber DGV, but it’s still a low-compression malaise-era lump. The good news is that it runs well.
It looks a little tired inside, but intact. If you want to freshen it up, everything you could possibly need is still available. That’s the nice thing about British sports cars, for now anyway: they have a loyal enough following to keep them going, even a generally unloved late-model Midget like this. Be warned, though; “Midget” isn’t just a clever name. This car is tiny. The seller says “If you’re tall or large this isn’t for you.” No kidding.
The paint on it isn’t great, but the top is in good shape, and it looks like it has escaped the tin worm. Several under-car photos are included in the ad, and they all look rust-free. It does have those giant rubber 5 MPH bumpers, which somehow look even worse on the Midget than they do on an MGB, and someone has added that gigantic chin spoiler to the front, which isn’t helping. The good news is that it’s far easier to de-rubber-bumper a Midget than it is an MGB, and they look pretty sharp without them.
2000 BMW Z3 – $3,500
Engine/drivetrain: 2.3-liter dual overhead cam inline 6, five-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Portland, ME
Odometer reading: 171,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well, but has a check-engine light
Little convertible sports cars fell out of fashion after MG and Triumph collapsed and Fiat abandoned the US market, but they never did quite disappear completely. Alfa Romeo kept the flame alive until a new generation of roadsters appeared a decade later, including the Mazda Miata, Lotus Elan, Porsche Boxster, and this car, the BMW Z3.
The Z3 debuted with a 1.9 liter four-cylinder engine, but BMW soon got wise and realized that the one thing that could distinguish it from the Miata was its legendary inline six. Sadly, this one is missing one item critical to the success of any sports car: a clutch pedal. Yep, some damn fool ordered this car with an automatic transmission, a GM-sourced five-speed gearbox. I mean, it works, but an automatic is a sin in any BMW smaller than a 7 Series, in my book. In a roadster, it’s just plain silly. It does run well, but the check-engine light is on for bad oxygen sensors. New sensors are included; not sure why the seller doesn’t just install them and be done with it. Plausible deniability in case the problem is actually more serious, I suppose.
The interior is a little rough around the edges: there’s a split seam in the passenger’s seat, and it looks like the door panels need some attention. And I do wish people would take the trouble to vacuum cars before photographing them for sale. It just makes it look so grubby with all that crud on the floor.
It does look good outside. The paint is still shiny, and there’s no sign of any rust. Best to check underneath, though; I don’t know if Maine uses salt on the roads or not, but with 171,000 miles on the clock, it’s a good bet this car has been driven in the winter at some point. And there’s no clear photo in the ad of the car with the top up, so it’s hard to say what sort of shape it’s in.
There are more frightening cars out there, of course, but either of these two will give you more to worry about than a Miata would. One is a British car from the ’70s, and the other is a turn-of-the-millennium BMW, after all. You’re in for some heartache and misery either way. But you’re also in for the wonderful sensation that is open-air motoring on a nice day. Which one is worth the trouble?
(Image credits: sellers)
I’ll take the Bimmer. Maybe the oil leaking from the M54 protected the chassis enough to prevent any show-stopping rust. Slushbox can be swapped out.
I think they are both tough choices. that many miles on a Beemer is always a scary preposition, but the draw of modern speed capabilities when working is compelling.
I would likely go with the MG and then quickly hate it and punt it to someone else. it is in good shape but not so desirable these days. so I feel like I could probably talk him down a long ways and then store it until tax season and the first inklings of spring pop up and then flip it easier if I had to.
YEEESH!
I’m certainly too big for an MG Midget, but I’ll still risk it rather than a modern BMW with a slushbox. NO THANK YOU!!!
Back in the early 90s when I was in high school, a friend had a Midget. One day as a prank, six buff jock dudes picked it up and put it on the curb.
“This is the way the world ends,” wrote T.S. Eliot, “Not with a bang but a whimper.” He could have been talking about British Leyland
Well he certainly wasn’t talking about the cars. Most of those end with a bang.
I would much rather stare at a Moss Motors catalogue, than at ISTA.
A BMW with a check engine light is a red flag, but it’s the automatic that broke the deal for me. I wouldn’t buy the MG, but in this face-off, it’s the better route. And if you’re tall, just leave the top down and peer over the windscreen.
I’m withholding my vote. I can’t in good conscious vote for the Bavarian, and the MG is a non-starter.
I’m going to do something I not only never do, but encourage others to never do, and pick the BMW.
I adore MGs, but at 6’2″, I’m simply too big a boy to drive one, but I fit in a Z3 comfortably (I know, surprised me too), and they’re an absolute riot to drive, even with the automatic, and while they’re just as unreliable as any other BMW, the Germans, for some reason, gave their smallest car the most room to work on it under the hood.
So yeah, the BMW-hating former BMW technician actually chooses the BMW for once.
I want it more…but I am scared of the underside and the top.
Maine is a salt state and I surmise that they never showed the top up for a reason.Found the posting. They have a top up picture, but what did they do to both passenger and drivers doors that required the removal of the pulls and locks?My friend in HS had a midget. Once a couple other guys and I played a trick on him by physically lifting the thing out of it’s parking space at positioning perpendicular to the road. Surprisingly, he remained my friend and I did get in this thing a couple times. I can’t say that it was ever anything approaching comfortable for me, so I would fall in the “does not fit” category. Sigh….slushbox bimmer.
Surprisingly, he remained my friend and I did get in this thing a couple times.
That is surprising as it’s a really dick move.
Not one of my prouder moments to be sure
MG here. Maine absolutely does use road salt. Just not as much as points further south. Plus registration in NY would be easier for the MG. Chasing a CEL on a 2000’s BMW to get it road legal sounds like an expensive and painful endeavor. There’s also the “slow car fast” spirit of the MG. Redlining every gear while being at or below the speed limit sounds like fun.
Between the auto and the check engine light in the Z3, gotta vote MG today. I won’t fit very well. Had a friend who was 6’6″ and he would wear googles and just look over the windshield.
In solidarity with my hero Rasputia from the 2007 film Norbit, I’ll have the MG.
MG. If I am buying a car that will require my wrenching “talents”, I want it to be 1978 tech not 2000 German tech.
Convert it to EV with 1990s tech and get the best of all worlds: fast, cheap, good(reliable).
The Midget could be made into a reliable/economical daily as an EV.
The automatic transmission and faulty engine of the Z3 could be stripped out, and with a new EV motor and controller, all of the computers required to run the car’s ICE and transmission become almost a non-issue. That Z3 is also mechanically stout, so making 300 horsepower and/or lb-ft of torque is not out of the realm of possibility for a reliable daily driver.
The biggest problem of either car for EV conversion is that their CdA sucks. But custom hard tops can be made, among other aero mods, to greatly mitigate that for either.
Personally, I’d pick the MG.
Having brought an E46 ZHP back from the dead, this era of BMW doesn’t scare me, but the automatic just kills it. Gimme the Midget and some time learning how to ditch the rubber bumpers ASAP.
With the Midget, you will have a fun little runabout you can take out on nice days and putter around with on weekends. You’ll have grease under your fingernails and great stories to go with it. You can wrench on it safe in the knowledge that just about anything you desire is a click away on Moss Motors or MGOC. It’s not a car, it’s a hobby, and not even a particularly expensive one.
Ugh. The Z3 promises mechanical headaches, but I just flat could not go out to my driveway and see a rubber bumper Midget sitting there. They’re just too hideous and not enough fun to counter that. At least the Z would look decent while it sat there waiting for repairs.
In the early-mid eighties I framed houses on Staten Island. I worked with a soon-to-be good friend who was 25 years my senior, a veteran carpenter/blackjack dealer with house-framing experience back to the fifties when he came home from Korea.
He was a pure Coupe DeVille man who was an active part of the SI gambling scene, i.e., games in luxury apartments, remote-site houses, and even a site on the upper floor of a volunteer fire station.
Anyway, he was a man of the world, and consequently pretty darn generous if he considered you worthy. He picked me up and dropped me off many times in his work car which was a mid-seventies Midget.
He drove it proudly and unironically, never drawing attention to the incongruity of car and driver. And who knows, maybe there wasn’t, internally. But without giving too much away, it was like Paulie Walnuts (The Sopranos) rolling up to a sitdown in this little box.
So, for him, there was that little something about this car, and it gets my vote.
If I’ve learned nothing else from The Autopian, it’s that you always avoid the German cars due to high maintenance costs. MG for me.
Z3 because I’m already somewhat familiar with it, and, if it pisses me off, it’s cheap enough to just put gnarly tires on and take up fire roads
If I found a way to like Marmite I’ll find a way to stuff myself into that MG.
Everything from the unaddressed CEL and dirty carpets in the Z3 screams “I’ve had it with this fucking car”. I’ll go with the Midget and enjoy cheaper constant repairs.
I know that feeling…getting rid of wife’s E46 was a happy day. Just took a bit since every time would get ready to sell, something else would break, causing a delay.
So, no mention of the awful mask that the MG is wearing as a Halloween tie-in?
Hannibal Deflector?
Damn, that’s so good I wish I’d thought of it.
How about picking some cars that never start when people are trying to flee in horror movies? Or some that surprisingly do – thinking if the beetle in “Gremlins”.
I don’t want either of these, being British of course I don’t want anything to do with any car that’s even remotely Leyland, but the last BMW I had was a Z4 and it’s ability to through up huge repair bills is why I replaced it with a cheaper-to-run Lotus.
“Berwyn?!?” Yeah, I’d go with the MG. At least, I might convince myself its a classic. The Z3 always struck my a pompous wannabe Miata.