![]() ![]() Rather like its big brother the Range Rover, the Metro was originally only designed as a three-door, with the five-door involving an amendment of the original design. Luckily these are available as pattern parts, but availability can still be patchy. You’re looking at around £85 for a pattern part – which will fit about as well as the slightly misshapen originals did – or twice that for a new-old-stock genuine item.Įlsewhere, the Metro also rots in the front and rear valances, which being double-skinned are harder to repair neatly. This panel is a bolt-on part which makes it easier to effect a patch repair, which is good news considering new OE panels are unavailable. The result was a cracking car, although infamously poor Euro NCAP crash test results hastened its demise in 1997.īacked by not insignificant national pride, the Metro was in fact Britain’s best-selling car in 19, and although it was outlived by the Mini, it did survive for a respectable 17 years.Īs with so many cars of this era, your biggest issue with any Metro is likely to be rust it was once a common sight to see examples with a neat line of rot running down the side of the wing behind the headlight. The basic structure of the Metro even survived the dramatic facelift into the Rover Metro, which at last produced the car it could always have been by combining a K-Series motor with the front-rear interconnection of the Hydragas system – something its inventor Alex Moulton had always intended. The range was subsequently revised many times but the underlying recipe was much the same.Ī facelift in 1984 brought in a revised interior with more modern dashboard, chunky seats and updated front end style, plus a wider track and a five-door model. The miniMetro tag was dropped in 1981 when the car was renamed simply ‘Metro’ the following year the car was responsible for the rebirth of the MG name, with the MG Metro and MG Metro Turbo models. There was also an automatic version using the same sophisticated four-speed AP gearbox as the Mini. The project was too far gone to start again, but drastic engineering and styling work was the result and brought victory from the jaws of defeat in less than three years.Īs launched in October 1980, the Metro was offered in 998cc and 1275cc versions, with trim levels ranging from the plain 1.0 to the HLE range-topper. It was during a management ride-and-drive session in 1978 that Michael Edwardes and his team tried what was to become the Metro and came away somewhat underwhelmed at the new car’s refinement – or lack thereof. The Metro was so nearly yet another near miss, though. It also had the advantage of being familiar to mechanics the world over. In reality, the A-Series (in revamped A-Plus form for the Metro) had plenty of life left in it – as was later to be proved by those 90s Minis – and was easily the equal of something like the breathless 895cc Volkswagen Polo. In fact, this was the era when British Leyland chairman Michael Edwardes was walking a knife-edge between keeping the firm going on government handouts or turning out the lights. The use of the A-Series motor in the Metro was of course down to cost: BL was in a bit of a state at the time the Metro was developed and had tried several times already to build a successor to the Mini. It’s easy to deride the Metro for its carry-over Mini mechanicals but in truth its Ford Fiesta rival – the benchmark for small cars – was relying on the old pushrod Kent engine which was decades old in 1980. ‘A British car to beat the world’ said the press adverts for the Metro – or Austin miniMetro as it was first known – and indeed in some areas the car was ahead of the competition. However, as you’ll see, the rest of isn’t quite so easy. ![]() Back in the day, an MoT-failed Metro was usually descended upon within minutes by Mini owners to be stripped of its running gear today, this does at least mean that the legions of Mini parts suppliers can cater for the A-Series powertrain. The Metro’s origins in the Mini have been both its salvation and downfall as a classic. This all means that the humble Metro has now regained a great deal of appeal, if not as a better-driving alternative to the Mini, then for its curiosity value alone. Once a regular in the best-seller charts, the Metro is one of those everyday cars which has suddenly dropped off the radar even the extensively redesigned Rover Metro is now a rare sight in everyday use. ![]() Much more than an attainable Mini alternative, the Metro is a fast-appreciating and endangered national treasureĭestined to be outlived by the very car it was intended to replace, the Metro was once something of a laughing stock, especially among the diehard Mini fans. ![]()
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