Private company

JC Midge

British kit car

JC Midge is a hand built car i.e. a "plan and pattern" car designed by John Cowperthwaite.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

JC Triumph Midge (1968)
Photo: Steve Glover from Bolton, Lancs., England, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

JC Midge is a hand built car i.e. a "plan and pattern" car designed by John Cowperthwaite.2

The story

It was first presented in 1985 by J.C. Sports Cars in Sheffield, England run by John Cowperthwaite and founded after his earlier company called Moss had its factory destroyed in a fire in 1985. Later marketing and development of the Midge was taken over by T&J of Rotherham and they continued into the mid-1990s. It was then taken over by White Rose Vehicles in Gillingham, Kent. WRV also constructed their own chassis that took Ford Escort (with Ford Cortina or Ford Taunus (1976–1982) front suspension) parts instead using a Triumph chassis. When White Rose Vehicles ceased trading some club members raised the money to buy the rights to market the car. As it is plan-based the Midge has also been built using various donors including the Citroën 2CV.

An updated version, the Midge Mk2, for which the donor car is the Suzuki SJ is now available (2014) with the original principle of plans and pattern and a minimum of 'kit' elements. Being a re-body it is in the United Kingdom exempt from IVA (Individual Vehicle Approval).

It is not known how many have been built.

From Wikipedia’s article on JC Midge, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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