# Midas Bronze



## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

Not sure I've posted these pics before as I found them last night on a long forgotten cd - a backup from some long forgotten computer repair/upgrade!

Anyway many apologies if I'm going over old ground here. I owned this car for 9 years (the longest time I've ever owned a car) & found it great fun to drive, reliable & surprisingly practical. Of course it did have its faults in that it wasn't the most refined vehicle on the planet, it's a kitcar so it leaked (leaks are the only things that come as standard with a kitcar) & on a cold morning there was often ice inside the windscreen because of all the condensation from the wet carpets (de-icer & a cloth sorted that out). It could only carry two people in comfort but at a push it could carry a 3rd in extreme discomfort! There were only 4 gears (courtesy of the Mini gearbox) so long motorway journeys left you a.) knackered b.) drained & c.) a good bit deafer than you were when you started!! The engine/gearbox, brakes, steering etc were all taken from a Mini (along with the front subframe), while the rear suspension used Mini radius arms along with a bespoke beam axle & coilover shock absorbers, rear brakes were drums & taken from the Mini also. Wheels were 12" minilite clone alloys. When I bought the car it had a 1000cc A series in it, by the time I sold it, I'd changed the engine to a 1275cc unit with a stage 1 tuning kit which made it into a pretty quick car.

Eventually though I'd had enough of it & wanted something bigger & more practical  so I advertised it on the web (can't remember which site!) & ended up selling it to a Mini enthusiast in Holland called Theo Artemis. He arranged for it to be transported over there in the back of an empty tulip lorry(!), got it re-registered on Dutch plates &, as far as I know, is still enjoying it as much as I did. It'd be nice to know what happened to it & whether he still has it or not. I've looked on the web & while there are a few Midas owners in Holland I haven't been able to track "my" car down - not knowing the Dutch registration number hasn't helped - I'm annoyed about this as Theo sent me quite a few pictures of the car with the new number on it :taz:

I'm not sure but I think I owned it between 1993 & 2002 as I think these were the photo's that I used to sell it. I'm probably looking at it through rose tinted specs but this was the first car that I really, really liked & enjoyed owning/working on/modifying/looking after etc, it needed regular maintenance (lots of grease nipples on the suspension for example) but it was easy to work on & simple to repair if anything did go wrong. The fact that it was based on a Mini meant that there were shedloads of tuning parts available for it - most of which could be adapted to fit.

I drive a lightly modified bubble shaped (K11) Micra these days which goes well & handles ok now I've fitted lowering springs & fatter alloys/tyres. It's a 1.3 & goes surprisingly well but it still rolls too much through the corners (it's much better than it was though!!) & has, so far, been epically reliable. Fuel consumption is similar to the Midas & practicality (4 seats, bigger boot etc) is better too, but for driver enjoyment, handling, roadholding etc the Midas wins the contest hands down - if I hadn't just bought the Scimitar SS1 then I'd seriously consider another Midas as a second (read "fun") car.

Enjoy the pics & once again please accept my apologies if you've seen them all before. I'll happily answer any questions as long as I know the answers to them :blink:.

Thanks for looking.


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

The interior - note the shagged carpet, alloy mats/footplates (to hide shagged carpet h34r: ), cut down gear lever with homemade alloy knob, additional clock/air vents (the large ones on top of the dash were completely useless) in the centre of the dash, the homemade glovebox lid (lockable no less!), the oil pressure gauge (which, like all things British, leaked slightly) just above the switch panel & the homemade alloy foot pedals!!

All in all bloody good fun


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

Side view - dumpy yet still quite streamlined (I think) :huh:


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## oldfogey (Nov 29, 2005)

Thanks for those: I'd always fancied a Midas but always had a practical car plus motorbike in those days. It was the successor to the Mini Marcos, was it not? Where were the kits made?


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

Had the Midas been developed a little further and used the Metro subframe/powertrain it might have been a different story!

Nice to hear these tales...I built a Westfield back in the...oh...I have no idea now...had to be 15 or 20 years ago I reckon! Loved building it.....finding all those little obsticles and engineering a way around them.....only had a 1600kent engine (but it was the GT head with the 711 block.....in fact still have one of those blocks in the garage gently "ageing" nicely, was offered quite a bit for it a few years ago from a historic formula ford racer!) but progress in it was pretty rapid, after all about 125bhp in something that weighed as much as a fat butterfly ain't bad going! :lol:

Funny thing is when I sold it I advertised it in the kit car mag and got no replies from April through to August...then out of the blue I thought Benny Hill had rung me.....got this odd call in a very heavy Japanese accent..."Izz or wesfee stoo for sale?" Bloke rang up from Japan :blink: next thing he flew over and bought it cash :tongue2: luvuleee.....

Don't really miss it...but is was bloody good fun!


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

Oh yeah...odd thing was after he had looked over it and I took him for a glorious blast through traditional English country lanes he was totally smitten......then he offered me over a grand less than I was asking, yeah right.....he flew from Japan specially to see it, then I swear he got an erection on the test drive :lol: and he expected me to say..."OK I'll drop the price" :lol: :lol: :lol:

Made a nice bob or two on that!


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## Stuart Davies (Jan 13, 2008)

Great post Paul thanks. The front end of the car remind me of an old Renault - canâ€™t remember the exact model but I think it was a ZX something??? Overall it looks like something that should have been raced in the Paris-Dakar rallyâ€™s.

Looking at that interior shot you would want your seat belt to failâ€¦ â€¦if it did youâ€™d have some pretty interesting shapes indented into your face! LOL

Cheers S


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

To be honest I don't think the Midas & Marcos were related (though I'm not positive about this). At the risk of offending Marcos owners I think the Midas was better made & more refined - mine must have been the exception then! When the Midas was released it was seen, I think, as almost being up to production car standards!! It might have been then I suppose but it certainly wouldn't be seen as being anywhere near production car standards now ........ things have moved on a long way since then!

There was a later car based on the Metro which was a much better looking car (but still clearly a Midas), the engine was still the ancient "A" series, but the suspension was based around the Metro's hydrogas system (I think). This car was called the Midas Gold & sold well. I don't think Midas ever became a full blown manufacturer but could supply the customer with a car that was 95% complete, so leaving something for the buyer to fit. The Gold was available as a convertible (something the Bronze was never available as) & was later marketed by another rival kit car manufacturer called GTM. GTM also made Mini/Metro based sportscars (the GTM Coupe - mini based & the Rossa - Metro based) & bought the rights to the Gold convertible after the Midas factory was dstroyed in a disastrous fire in the 90's. I think that GTM may still offer the convertible Gold in kit form though it's been outshadowed (read "eclipsed") by their more recent offerings such as Libra - which is a seriously good looking & very capable sports car - so I can't magine they sell many. I'm a bit out of touch with what's happening in the kit car world though so I may be talking complete twaddle! There was yet another Midas coupe, & convertible, produced based on the later "K" series engined Metro's. I really wanted one of these when it came out but the front end styling let the car down & i don't think it ever sold in any great numbers. I'm pretty sure that this was marketed by GTM also but I may be wrong - if it was made by Midas then the disastrous fire must have happened very soon after the car was released.

Interesting to hear about your Westfield - the bloke who bought it must have been serious to come all the way over from Japan! The bloke who bought mine bought it sight unseen & he only lived in Holland! I've recently sold my house & moved in with my girlfriend so have some disposable income for the first time in ages - my intention was to keep a few thousand from the house sale & treat myself to a daft impractical car  I looked at Westfields etc but in the end I decided that they were too expensive for what you got (4 wheels & a windscreen if you're lucky!) & utterly impractical for anything even remotely resembling everyday use. I read a report on Pistonheads about someone borrowing a Caterham for a few days as his everyday car. He said that he was surprised at how user friendly it was but also how dreadful it was in traffic jams (one of which I've been stuck in tonight ) as he ended sitting at exhaust level for ages & ended up feeling both sick & light headed - not good when you have to drive a car that demands 100% concentration at all times. A Seven would be great to have a blast in & blow the cobwebs out every so often but the Scimitar (when it works) is good for that, has a decent sized boot for the shopping, as well as a good heater & hardtop for lousy days (& have we had any other kind in this so called summer?) & cost a fraction of what the cheapest Seven I saw cost!

Anyway enough blathering I'm off to bd


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## JonW (Mar 23, 2005)

Cool. I loved these... but the GTM was my fave... I saw a great early one at Demon Tweaks (the original old shop) back in about 1987 with full on interior upgrade and it rocked...

As for the Marcos connection, didnt Jem Marsh design them both...

The Caterham is very user friendly actually. Even my R300 with roller barrels is ok in traffic, tho gets a bit hot here. you gotta watch the heat with a K series... I wish a Japanese fella would ring me... Id like to sell mine and get someting else... I'll miss it when its gone, but hey such is life...


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

JonW said:


> As for the Marcos connection, didnt Jem Marsh design them both...


I can't remember who designed the Midas but the name Richard Oakes rings a bell, as does Harold Dermott & Gordon Murray (of McLaren fame) had some input into the design as well as owning one of the cars, he obviously went on to bigger/better things!!

Midas cars are still being made by Alternative Cars Ltd http://www.midascars.co.uk/index.html The Cortez coupe (awful name !) is the "K" series engined one that I really wanted when it first came out - a nice looing car (from the side!) but the front end still lets it down somewhat I think - I could live with it though I'm sure. Even though my Bronze was compromised by lousy heating/ventilation & ancient running gear it still made a lot of sense - reliable/economical mechanicals fitted into a strong rust free fibreglass monocoque bodyshell = a long lasting, cheap to run & fun to drive car. Presumably the newer models continue this trend as all will be glassfibre monocoques - in fact I can't remember any Midas ever being made with a seperate chassis, it just wasn't the way they did things!!


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