Gone to be a Midge!
Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:07 pm
At the risk of having opprobrium heaped upon me I am sorry to report that my dear old Dirt Chucker has gone to become a JC Midge Mk2. My M.o.T. man had told me that he would be unable to pass it again until significant work had been done on the chassis/body mountings, so I sought out a local welder, who came recommended, to do the work and let him have the vehicle to do it in September, 2016. Sixteen months and a series of lies about progress later, I had to retrieve it and had lost the incentive to press on with it, particularly as we're short of space on our drive, and let a lad have it to make it into a Midge because, mechanically, it was as near perfect that an over-twenty-year-old vehicle could be, and didn't want to scrap it.
I can hear voices saying that I should have done the work myself but, at 72 years old, I don't have sufficient time, expertise
or facilities to do such a job and felt that it would be better with someone else. Amen to my twenties when the vehicle-of-choice was an ex-army Austin/Rolls Champ (price £75.00!), to which the Samurai has several similarities, particularly that silky-slick gearbox, except that the Champ had all five gears in reverse too!! 'Good for retreats!' the squaddies used to say.
I can hear voices saying that I should have done the work myself but, at 72 years old, I don't have sufficient time, expertise
or facilities to do such a job and felt that it would be better with someone else. Amen to my twenties when the vehicle-of-choice was an ex-army Austin/Rolls Champ (price £75.00!), to which the Samurai has several similarities, particularly that silky-slick gearbox, except that the Champ had all five gears in reverse too!! 'Good for retreats!' the squaddies used to say.