fibreglass techniques 1978 pastiche cars 1990 gtm cars 1991 alternative cars ltd 2003 production 1978 onwards designer richard oakes & gordon murray body and chassis body style 2 door coup and convertible powertrain engine various transmission 4 speed manual 5 speed manual cvt automatic chronology predecessor mini marcos successor none the midas is a british made kit car initially using mini running gear that grew out of the mini marcos . harold dermott and his company d & h fibreglass techniques of greenfield oldham greater manchester england came to an agreement in 1975 with marcos cars to take over production of their mini marcos model . the car with its odd ball looks was looking outdated so dermott asked the designer richard oakes to come up with a new model . the new car which was called the midas was launched at the 1978 performance car show in london . the car had a composite body with no chassis using the mini engine gearbox and front subframe but replacing the rear subframe with a beam on which the trailing arms were hinged . in 1981 an updated model was introduced with improvements suggested by gordon murray of the brabham formula 1 team at the time . the car was available in three versions called gold silver and bronze depending on completeness . demand for cars was now outstripping the small workshop in oldham so a move was made to a factory in corby northamptonshire and the company name changed to midas cars ltd. further improvements were made in 1985 when the midas gold was adapted to take austin or mg metro parts . a restyle was also made at the same time again by richard oakes involving wider wings a frogeye front and larger windows . gordon murray provided input to improve the aerodynamics . in order to sell complete cars as well as kits a midas successfully underwent a full ece12 crash test . a convertible version appeared in 1989 and featured on the front cover of car magazine 1 but all production stopped in march 1989 when the premises were destroyed by fire . new ownership edit the rights to the car were purchased in 1990 by pastiche cars of rotherham yorkshire who relaunched the range and made a handful of convertibles before the receivers were called in again in 1991 and sold the gold convertible on to gtm cars of sutton bonnington nottinghamshire . gtm added a series of changes including hydragas suspension and a hardtop . the range continued to develop with in 1995 a new 2 2 coup based on the k series engined metro and rover 100 models . the moulds of the gold coupe were sold to berlin germany by gtm in 1990 where they were used for an unemployment project . in the meantime the old mini based midas had reappeared being made by midtech cars for a short time . in 2001 the midas changed hands again when gtm sold it to a new midas cars ltd based in redditch west midlands . the range now consisted of the coup renamed the cortez and a k series powered convertible named the excelsior . although the cars were well received the company went into liquidation in 2003 . a new company alternative cars ltd was set up in 2003 and in 2004 restarted production of kit form versions of the gold convertible cortez and excelsior based in a small workshop unit at clanfield oxfordshire . 2 in 2007 the midas owners club rediscovered the gold coupe moulds in germany and bought them and were imported back to england . 3 midas gold coupe 1985 to 1990 midas gold convertible 1989 to date midas cortez 1995 to date midas excelsior 2002 to date references edit cover feature . car magazine . february 1989 . missing or empty url help ; access date requires url help the cars midas . ar online . 15 june 2011 . retrieved 21 february 2012 . midas cars ltd oldham and later corby . midas owners club . retrieved 21 february 2012 . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to midas vehicles . official website midas cars forum a forum for midas cars . company history at ritzsite retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title midas cars & oldid 740324752 categories motor vehicle manufacturers of englandkit car manufacturers1978 establishments in englandhidden categories pages using web citations with no urlpages using citations with accessdate and no urlcommons category with local link same as on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutsch edit links this page was last modified on 20 september 2016 at 10 41 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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