It’s the MG you rarely hear talked about - mainly because it was a badge-engineered Austin/Morris that never even saw the Abingdon factory! Yet the MG 1100 and 1300 were good little sports saloons that in many ways were the BMW 3 Series of their day being sporty, compact, pretty prestigious yet cheap enough to own and fairly attainable. Today you rarely see these highly advanced, spacious and spry cars around and yet they make splendid, seriously cheap starter classics. And let’s not forget the others in the family of upmarket 1100 and 1300s from Riley, Wolseley and Vanden Plas, where the latter in particular enjoyed surprising success in Japan over the past decade or so. Isn’t it time you tried a ‘Big Mini’?