Roger wrote:
The message
from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

I had a couple of Midgets in the 70s, one between a Lotus Elan and a
Fiat X 1-9 if I recall the sequence correctly. I liked Midgets but the
Midget was the slowest by some margin and the acceleration was
sufficiently poor to make overtaking bloody minded slow drivers
hazardous (and I had honed my overtaking skills in a 2A SWB Land Rover).

Then you're talking about the 948cc one - which is slow by modern
standards. But never by Land Rover ones. ;-) The 1275 is lively.

No - 1098cc. One C reg, one D.

According to a Buyers Guide (Classic Cars August 1998) the top speed of
the Mk 3 1275 was 95 mph and 0-60 time 14 seconds. A similar guide (CC
11/2002) for the MGB quoted figures for the 1965 Roadster of 106 and
12.9.

I have never even ridden in a B so can't comment on their handling (and
only the once in an elderly A) but I thought the 0-60 time for the B was
considerably better than even the later Midgets.

The power to weight ratio between a B and 1275 Midget is near identical.

The figures above would seem to suggest the B had the edge. I don't have
any figures for weight but the Mk3 Midget was 64 bhp at 5800 with 72 ft
lb of torque at 3000 while the B was 95 bhp at 5400 with 100 lb ft of
torque at 3000.

By way of contrast the Elan Sprint (CC 3/05) was 126bhp at 6500 with 113
ft lb of torque at 5500 and a 0-60 time of 6.7 seconds.


If it would start at all. I had a collegaue who used to have to retard
they ignition last thing at night, start it,and then retime it to get it
to run smoothly ;-)


Classic Cars haven't done a report on the S2 Land Rover AFAIK but I
wouldn't be at all surprised if the 0-60 time was closer to 30 seconds
than 20.