The lovely and vivacious Denise Thorpe writes:
>What I want to know is, why
>was the latest MG Midget originally the Austin Healey sprite?
>
Well, as the Divinitides used to say, "When the student is ready, the
teacher will appear."
Of course it can only be a guess (what else?), but... the way I figure it a
bunch of guys in gabardines decided that there was more name recognition in
"MG" and the octagon symbol than there was for either "Austin" or "Healey"
or that knight's helmet with the big feather (at least in the US), so they
decided to "bring back the great Midget line" and did some badge engineering
on the Sprite (as well as some cosmetics in the transition from "frog/bug
eye" to its more MGB-esque form) and sold them both. Its my understanding
that the Midget sold for a bit more than the Sprite but that in spite of
that the Midget outsold the Sprite. Three cheers for brand loyalty.
An ex-friend of mine bought a Mitsubishi Eclipse instead of an Eagle Talon
once (and paid more for it, too) because he thought that Japanese cars were
better. Never under-estimate the intelligence of the average consumer!
Will "whose intelligence is frequently over-estimated" Zehring
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