Rare Rides: This Midas Gold From 1998 Is Grey
Every once in a while, a car surfaces from the vast internet that truly deserves the title of “obscure.” It happened previously with a beautiful Gordon Keeble, and now Rare Rides is proud to present another very obscure British two-door.
It’s a Midas Gold, obviously.
Though the Midas entered production as a kit car in 1978, its roots lie further back in history with the Marcos brand (which Rare Rides covered previously). Marcos started building its Mini Marcos kit cars in 1965. The cash-strapped company was still building the same car in 1975, and needed assistance. Enter fiberglass company D&H Fiberglass Techniques. Marcos inked a deal with D&H to rework and manufacture a new version of the Mini Marcos.
By 1978 a revised coupe was ready, entering showrooms as the Midas. Like the Marcos, the Midas utilized a fiberglass body and Mini underpinnings. The first-generation model saw a host of updates for 1981 after slightly famous racing person Gordon Murray made some suggestions to D&H.
The company improved its Midas again in 1985. A visual rework added frogeye lamps, larger windows, and better aerodynamics thanks to additional input from Gordon Murray. The Midas now wore bodywork and parts based on the MG Metro. D&H then expanded the Midas range to include fully-finished vehicles after subjecting the Midas to Euro-standard crash testing. By the end of the Eighties, a convertible Midas joined the coupe in the lineup. Things at D&H were getting hot.
Literally.
The factory in Northamptonshire burned down in March 1989. Production ground to a halt. Midas brand ownership changed hands in 1990, 1991, 2001, and 2003. The brand is presently owned by Alternative Cars Limited, which builds the traditional Gold convertible, as well as new models developed in the Nineties: Excelsior and Cortez. The Gold coupe’s moldings was sold off separately to the government of Berlin, Germany in 1990, and coupes were not produced after that time.
Today’s 1998 Midas Gold was built during the ownership of a Nottinghamshire company called GTM Cars. Their ownership saw additional development of the Gold, with a Hydragas suspension and optional hardtop added to the convertible. Offering a 998cc engine and manual transmission, the Gold also has a heater. This one is for sale right now in England, and asks $5,000.
[Images: seller]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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"The factory in Northamptonshire burned down in March 1989. Production ground to a halt." Paging Captain Obvious! ;-)
"The Gold coupe’s moldings was sold off separately to the government of Berlin, Germany in 1990, and coupes were not produced after that time." This sentence seems rather unclear. What was sold to Berlin? Next question ... why?