YGGN4/718 Gerda's Midget

YGGN4/718 is a 1968 MG Midget. Built in Sydney and first purchased on the 28th May 1968 from a dealer, P & R Williams on Parramatta Rd, Drummoyne. Miss Freya Perec was the first owner and shortly there after, she sold to a fellow university student, Miss Margaret Goodacre within the year. This too was not to be a long relationship and the Midget was traded to Brian Rowe Motors at Flemington. The story goes that the repayments were unaffordable and young Miss Margaret could no longer meet the expense.

Now, the next owners were to make up the car’s disappointment of it’s first two. One sunny afternoon, driving along Parramatta Rd, Gerda & Otto Renger spied the Indigo Blue Midget out the front, shining in the sun and it obviously caught their eyes. Totally unplanned and after a brief negotiation, the car was purchased for $2050.00 on the 19th October 1969. Unbeknown to Gerda & Otto, the car would remain in their possession until 2008 and provide many years of driving adventures.

The Midget resided in Neutral Bay NSW for near on 39 years and was Gerda’s pride & joy. Otto performed most of the maintenance over those years and during the restoration, a couple of his old spanners were discovered. (very rusty).

But by 2008, the Midget was showing all of its 40 years, It had worn blue carpet and cracked original black seats with white piping. The body had faded and spray pak paint covered the body. The best thing it did was consume oil. Bryan Wells purchased it from Gerda & Otto who had great expectations of restoring the Midget back to its former glory, but in some wisdom, decided that some other worthy person could undertake this mission, and it was sold again to Andrew Booth in January 2009.

Undertaking the the car’s rebirth, the restoration plan had 2 main rules....If it ain’t blue, it had to be shiny. The other was to bring it into the 21st century without changing its features too much. It still had to represent the the classic that was lying beneath 40 years of hard yakka.

In July 2009, the car was stripped in a couple of days and sent to Redistrip in Blackdown to remove all rust, filler and layers of paint. By early August, the Midget was delivered naked to Brendan at The Hills Prestige Car Repairs for the full treatment.

Due to a previous front end accident in its early years, the entire front assembly was removed and rebuilt by Brendan. There was no serious rust, just some in the usual places and the car was painted in BMW metallic Blue.

While the car was in the paint shop, Colin rebuilt the engine and gearbox while Andrew scrubbed, cleaned, blasted and painted just about every part. A LSD diff was also fitted and a nice pair of 1.5 inch SUs were restored and polished.

After 11 months of prep & paint, the car was delivered back to Colin at Sprite Parts in June 2010 and reassembly began.

Between July – November 2010, Andrew spent countless hours at Colin’s workshop almost every weekend and also took some holidays from work to complete the rebuild, and a new urgency had appeared in that the car was to be used for a wedding in the new year.

In November the car was returned to Brendan at The Hills Prestige Car Repairs to have the front panels fitted and all the chromework and the car then returned back to Colin in Late February 2011 for the finals bits and pieces.

And in April 2011, the car was finished....just 2 weeks before the expected wedding date.

And as promised. Gerda’s Midget returned to her namesake at Balmoral Beach for a visit and to show her previous owners her new livery.

Needless to say, Andrew now has many hug bruises! And a open invitation to visit anytime......