I find getting out of my MGB is easy enough. Long door, good stretched out driving position. If the hood is up, though, the sidebars are low enough to be a problem now.
The Spitfire is pretty good, too, even though the cockpit isn't nearly as spacious as a B. The driving position is good and the doors are still long enough. It is lower than the B and has a metal roof to get your head out from under, so leg strength a requirement and you have to be able to at least bend your neck. There actually is more vertical room in a Spit with a hard roof than a B with the hood up. You learn these things now, when it never mattered before. Grin!
The Midget is a real problem. It and the Spitfire are near as makes no difference the same size. While the Spit is body-on-frame, a Spridget is a monocoque car, so the structure of the body dictates a few dimensions that now matter to me greatly. The doors are short, meaning you have to almost curl up in a ball to get your legs past them on the way out. The seat doesn't go back as far as a Spit as there is a crossmember behind it. About a foot behind that crossmember is a tall bulkhead, so the seat doesn't lay back into a good position, either. That sit-up-and-beg seating position up near a large steering wheel, even though I have but a 27" inseam, now makes it near impossible to get my legs out of the car.
I never liked the Spridget seating position nearly as much as a Spit, but until now it was for control/ competition reasons; locking the arms out properly and a far less fatiguing position laid out like one can do in the Spitfire. In a Midget, the design is much more of a "wrap-around" even though the cars are the same size; you wear a Midget.
I have a smaller size steering wheel to try in the Midget; it will help but I have my doubts it will help enough. Still, going down fighting is more my style. They are wonderful cars properly set up.
In my youth I had campaigned a couple but never owned one. Every time I was in the market for something I could fix up and run (therefore something I could afford) it was always either a Mini or a Spit that crossed my sights. I have no regrets having bought this one, as I always wanted to own one. I must admit that, in this size class, a Spit is the better drivers' car though the Midget, being a bit simpler in design, was just a little bit harder to break.
Go up a size, though, to the "gentleman's roadster" rather than a true sports-car, I prefer an MGB to the comparable Triumph TR series cars.
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