Austin Morris Group - Metro Development
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ม.ค. 2015
- An early 1980's video looking at the development of the Austin Metro and this video shows us its design stages, testing and also the new facilities in which it will be built at Longbridge.
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This video was the spark that started my TH-cam channel. I wanted to find out the whole story, not just the marketing spin from this video. Thanks for uploading it!
Thank you Big Car, I am loving your videos on your channel. Such a shame TH-cam had to be so abrupt with your prior channel! Keep up the good work!
@@jacquespitt3734 Thanks - glad that something you uploaded has produced something you're enjoying!
That's my dad on the left at 3.12. He was an engineering designer in the motor trade all his life. Love the sideburns! X
Excellent. Did he ever talk about the job? Did he believe in the car he was designing?
Good video. Go to Longbridge now and you`d never know that Austin/BMC/Leyland/Rover had ever been there. Just wiped off the face of the Earth, makes me want to cry.
So sad that it’s been torn down 😭
The thing is the Germans and the Chinese promised they would save them when they bought them and they closed them right after and then told us they had to support there own country.
Westminster and the rich are probably glad that the working class have got shops and bus jobs that pay a tiny fraction of the income.
That happens when communists rule your industry!
For information this was shot by CTV, a small London based company. We had an unusually long time to produce it. Normally a launch film like this would be shot over a couple of months but I was able to get budget approval for this one far enough in advance to be able to cover much more of the development story than was usually possible.
I love the West Works construction footage...As I remember Tarmac Construction did the bulk earthworks & site levelling, & I think Wimpey got the build itself....
Although vastly old-fashioned now and not old enough to be considered a classic by everybody like the Mini, these are still fantastically fun to drive, very economical, rather reliable, and very practical.
They are getting there though ,one in as good a condition as my Jag sovereign is worth more :(....My 1st car was an MG metro mk1 and i loved it
As a young panel beater working in a Austin Rover dealership at the time, I have a lot to thank the Metro for. It kept me in continuous employment, cutting out corroded chassis front cross members and valances, and welding in new. That's what I call fore thought by the design team, a steady stream of spare parts and post sales employment for the service industry.
We had two of these. Absolutely brilliant car. Completely trouble free and cheap to run. Fabulous.
Ah you bought the fresh off the production line Monday Morning Metro....LOL
RML Bobby D - define completely trouble free.
If you had upgraded from a 70’s BMC / BL car, of course you could say it was trouble free compared to the previous shitbox you had owned.
And then you woke up and realised you were dreaming!
We had two in the late 80's.
One was crap, the other was a cracking motor.
The fact that the second had metallic paint was not unimportant. They didn't seem to suffer the same rust issues as the flat colours.
I never had one because I had vision.
Some fantastic KPM Library music used here:
1:40 is 'Sea Of Tranquility (b)' by Dave Vorhaus
16:25 is 'Voyager One' by Dave Vorhaus
18:40 is 'Dream Machine' by George Fenton and Ken Freeman.
25:22 is 'High Technology' by Andy Clark
Thanks to LordThames of VeryGoodPlus forum for identifying these great library music tracks!
+Ryan Patrick gotta love stock music
One can really hear the Giorgio M. influence in Dream Machine. :-)
KPM regularly showed up in Australian soap opera too :)
I had a Metro as a works car. It was only the bog standard 1.0 ltre and I was always impressed how quite it was at motorway speeds.
how was it quite on the motorway in 4th gear?
@@paulhunter123 Even without 5th gear which many cars didn't have back then they were very quiet.
This video keeps talking about how engineers had a mania for quality building and quality testing and build better than their competitors. Did someone dub the narration about another car on to this video?
It's puffery from the company itself, of course they're not going to give you the truth.
I had an 1980 model from 1999 for a year or so ... it was a brilliant little car, good road control fuel consumption and very little rust.. No complaints from me!!!.
6:21 - even the Metro test prototype was rusting! Classic :)
Yeah I noticed that too. Should've been telling...
Why would you rust-proof a prototype? It doesn't need to have a long life.
The test cars have to be built to the same standard, hence the name test car, they often drive them for long periods of time on normal roads, havent you ever seen any pre production cars driving around in camo?
they rusted less than fiats
The FIATs were garbage as well.
Doesn't mention the fact that in 1979 Honda bought 30% of BL. In fact, the Triumph Acclaim was the Honda Ballade. When I went to Longbridge in the early 90s the Honda Concerto was being produced there.
Quite enjoyed that, especially the production line montage near the end played to retro synth music. Apparently when new west works was built it had half the industrial robots in all the UK
My father used to buy these and they were trouble free and reliable.
I remember these. Two on the street had one and every damp or cold morning they took about 30 attempts to start. Meanwhile our polo of the same era just fired up 1st time. They were anything but reliable.
It must have had a fault or not been serviced correctly. Mine never failed to start.
@@dawnkennedy3583 or possibly the owners didn't know how to use a manual choke properly and kept flooding the engine.
Sounds like driver error or poor maintenance. I had an A-series in a Mini. It always started at the first turn of the key all year round.
This video is one of my favorites:)
If i didnt know better, after watching this video i would be fooled into thinking this was a very good car
Compared to other cars at the time it was no worse, and it didn't sell 2million by pure luck over such a long period. Love it or loathe it - you have to give the car some credit for what it achieved. I've had three of various vintages and every one has been a hoot.
It was the closest pre-Honda pre-BMW BL came to a decent car. Engineered on a shoestring but fully competitive in its segment until about 83, think of the resources Ford had to throw at the Fiesta.
@@Sdblahm67 Most of the money must have went into automating the production process, seeing how the cars before it were screwn together by sheer luck. And automating an assembly line is one thing, getting the quality of the supply chain right is another...
Ok in1980!
"Quality became a mania" the man said. Trouble was, none was included in the finished car...
Is it me or does the ADO88 prototype look a lot more modern than the actual car? If that had come out around 77, it would have been a game changer for Leyland or whatever it was called then. Instead they came out with a more dated design in Oct 1980? Sad.
I used several Metros for work for many years and liked them.
We had 3 in succession. Excellent on fuel, lots of room inside, no complaints.
I was lucky enough to drive a brand new (A) registered -1984 Silver 1-0cc Automatic Mini Metro, which was a hire car when our family Mk3 Ford Cortina was in the body shop following a London taxi running in to the back of it, the Metro drove very well, was very spacious inside, quiet, and extremely economical, compared to the 1600cc Automatic Ford Cortina, which used far more fuel, but then it was a bigger engine and heavier car, I LOVED the Metro, many people complain they were not good, BUT like so many USED cars it depends on the way they had been looked after, New these Metros were good, New the Ford Cortina Mk3 was good, lots of people say they were rust buckets, BUT again it was bad neglectful owners NOT the cars, I still own the Ford Cortina Mk3, (43 years old) and bought it as a new car in 1974, now with 325,523 Miles (three time around the clock,on the original OHC engine!!) and very minor rust issues in that time, proves the point any car is only as good as the effort owners put in, neglect it and it will rust, fall apart, and brake down, look after it and it will stay reliable and last.
My first car! And the only car I have ever loved!
April 2019. Great video
I had two inc an early 1980. They were kinda ok but needed a lot of fixing. Water pumps seemed to only last a couple of years. The indicators used to stop flashing if you did not keep you foot on the gas at ideal. Rust got them in the end but the 1980 L i kept on the road till 1996.
I had an MG Metro 1300 on a D-plate. It used to handle like it was on rails and the seats were ahead of their generation even then. Fuel economy was impressive too, not that much different to the modern stuff - so the A-series was pretty efficient, even if it was ancient. I used to go up and down the M4 a lot from London as a student and it was great for transporting my gear. The rear seats used to fold flat and you could get all manner of stuff in. Once it started, it would happily do 200 miles non-stop. Getting it started sometimes was a problem in damp weather, especially towards the end. But I was a member of Green Flag so I just used to place a call and they'd come out and get me going again. I always wanted to try the Turbo but never had the opportunity.
When it went, it had done around 80000 miles and was on its last legs. Rust, shoddy-looking paintwork, a major oil-leak and electrical gremlins meant it had to go. Plus I was no longer a student so I had a bit more cash... Good memories :-)
Shaun McDowall A
Shaun McDowall Q
I recall about 3 months after the Metro first came out they were starting to rust away.
12,000 miles or 1 full year between servicing, hopefully they actually lasted that long, after all British Leyland cars were almost guaranteed to go wrong and rust in the first year.
The car had a 4 speed transmission at a time when other makes had 5 speeds.
Very few cars in the early 80s were 5 speed.
Well engineered Ha...Ha...I like the way the gutter stop halfway up the windscreen pillar so when you opened the door in the rain water dripped onto your right leg. You could,nt make it up !!
The body's on these cars, literally melted away as you were looking at them !!!.
Err, not literally melted away! More like metaphorically melted away! Ice is something that melts 'literally'.
So did the Japanese in those days. I remember Datsun and Toyota cars of those days, while being generally much more reliable, where the bodies had rust holes you could literally, and I do actually mean literally, poke your fist through by the time they were five years of age. I had a Mk1 Fiesta, another unreliable shoddy heap of a car, that needed a whole body respray before it was out of warranty at a year old and which had great big rust holes in the ends of the doors, not far from the hinges, by the time it had its third birthday.
No front wheel arch liners back then and no wax protection either. Batteries and exhausts that lasted barely a year, points that needed adjusting every 3000 miles and brake pads that caught fire on even moderate hills. No dual circuit brakes either in 1975, resulting in my Fiesta having total brake failure some 200 yards from home. Thank goodness it happened there, on a slow sharp corner where it only hit a hedge without too much damage to the car.
It's a shame BL saved on rust proofing.
I had a couple of these, the second being silver.
From my experience, the metallic colours didn't have the same rust issues as the flat colours.
I'm not sure if it ever was as crap as all that. A friend had the MG Metro turbo and "crap" was not an adjective often applied to it by anyone who drove it. They were conceived as mass market cars never really aimed at the car enthusiast market. Quite well designed basic A to B transport for the masses built very much down to a price. As I recall, even the Renault 5 and Golf of the same era were rust buckets after a surprisingly short time as, of course, were Fiestas. That was unfortunately the state of the art at the time.
I had a small part in the commissioning of the e-coat plant at Dagenham as the technology came in and promised to make a huge difference. It allowed the best possible surface preparation and consequently the best paint adherence to the steel and dramatically changed the longevity of the autobody system. My car has multiple stone chips on the steel Bonnet and some of these must be 12 years old but none show any signs of rusting! Sadly at Dagenham they were outbid for the replacement Fiesta before the line was really ever used.
In essence, this was before "Cool Britannia" and the image of the bearded engineering teams and the rabid communist line worker was not a brand image many people were keen to endorse with their money.
That all said, I do remember my Father accidentally hitting the throttle rather than the brakes whilst parking his Audi 100 and squashing his sisters Metro against the dining room wall! I replaced both wings, front panel, bonnet and both bumpers on the Metro. I had to use a hot air gun to smooth out the scuff on his bumper! That was a pair of cars engineering generations apart. In comparison, I also recall the delivery of a brand new early Rover SD1, an inspired design, which had 3 stone chips already on the bonnet the size of the nail on my little finger and with rust already starting. How?
My Mum bought a second hand one in the 80's. When we tried to change a front wheel, the jack went straight through the rotten floor into the footwell!!!!
You don't jack a car on the floor.
Dawn Kennedy It was the front jacking point, completely rotten....
There's no point finishing the sentence, Lynn, because I am not driving a Mini-Metro.
It's a small Rover.
They’ve rebadged it you fool.
This country!
My first car was a 1988 Metro. Didn't even have it a year before I got rid of the chuffing rust bucket.
Metro Underdevelopment would be a better and far more accurate title. We were given one once as a rental car on a trip to the UK. It broke down in a couple of miles, got going again and then another breakdown. The rental company (one of the well known chains) said that experience was common.
my first car was an x Reg metro in orange and I loved it. could put a quids worth of petrol in it and go out for the day lol. when I got an a Reg maestro at aged 20 I thought I was someone lol. sad really looking back but they were good engines. always got me to work in all weathers
kewl
I had a B reg Maestro when I was 20. It didn't get me to anywhere in bad weather. It would conk out when it rained and then fail to restart without a liberal application of WD40 onto the distributor and HT leads. It was mainly down to the distributor being mounted on the bulkhead, where rain water would be thrown up onto it and soak it, and the water the running down the HT leads. Other than that, and the time it died with a huge splutter when one of the vacuum hoses controlling the auto choke split, and the time it broke when one of the transmission shafts sheared, or the day I had to call in to work to tell them I couldn't get to work because it wouldn't start at all, it was pretty robust.
It’s nice to see them working and not on strike
Probably took 2 years to obtain that amount of footage of actually working people
Fascinating time capsule of British engineering
Loved the metro , i had three in total a 1.0l followed by a 1.0 hle and a few years later a rover metro 1.4 sri auto
I took my driving test in one of these on April 6th 1982 with BSM.
Brilliant cars, still daily drive one today averaging about 300-400 miles a week
My step mum had one of these in gold. A series was a great engine build quality on the rest of the car was a complete cock up. It fell apart before her eyes. I own a rover 25 and whilst its lovely to drive it feels like it was thrown together.
+Dennis Smith not anymore I now own a brand new dacia sandero
+Dennis Smith put 2k miles on mine in 3 months not a single issue. cost me £6700 brand new with 5 years warranty. it has all the basics covered electric Windows Bluetooth pas. can't fault it
What a brilliant idea throwing them of Beachy Head cliff before the warranty is over.
If you watch nothing else, watch @19:08. priceless.
Ian Clancy what about it?
Gay
Ian Clancy 🤣🤣🤣
@@Tallandcharming The car bouncing excessively can be fun to watch.
The Aroused Eunuch have you heard of Netflix? Way. Better.
Around 1986, I saw an used '80 Marina for £600, a similuar aged Talbot for the same price - but a six year old Toyota or VW Passat used to lay at around £2500-3500 here in Norway those days. Might be a reason for that. Can't remember the Metro here at all.
What an incredible achievement.
Just lay in bed and watched this in its entirety. Amazing what you do when you can't sleep! Quite fascinating all the money and planning and design and development that goes into making something as utterly shite as a Metro! I just loved all the retro music and the narration especially when he used words like "quality" and "reliability".
I never had any reliability issues with any of mine.
Just lay in bed and keep wanking Matt, the Metro was a fantastic city car and an 18 year production run proved that.
my first car was a red n black metro turbo, i loved it, when it was running.
I had driving lessons in one of those in '91- I hated the thing.....it was a blessing I ran out of money to carry on taking lessons in the Metro, I did eventually pass my driving test in a Renault Clio.
Can't blame a car for a lack of driving skill.
I like that they used speed handles.
Like the model at 23.41. Couldn't get away with that any more in this PC era. Look at her! I would. Mind you, she'd be in her 60's now!
The last of the CAB1 production lines are being stripped out as I type, sad times.
Quite like the look of the rear end sketch at 7:04, has a slight Innocenti Mini and Daihatsu Charade (G100/G102) look to it.
+wickiezulu I agree with this too.
+Jacques Pitt (JACQUES330) Do you know if there is any truth to rumors that the Austin Metro was also intended to feature a 1.0 Daihatsu diesel or 1.5 VM Motori diesel?
+wickiezulu try this website www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/ loads of BMC BL and ARG information there
That factory looks really advanced for the time though.
The Metro was anything but refined! Not BL's worst car by any means, but whatever car they made, there were always better options from the competition.
Meant to replace the mini and was alot safer but no one cared until ncap named and shamed cars from 1997. At least they got the 90% recyclable bit right - they needed it. To be fair budget cars were expected to rust like mad - the yugo for example had no undercoating as standard.
The Metro is that child then never achieved anything compared to his brother the Mini who was a high achiever.
The Metro was a better car than the Mini. The Mini was never a high achiever and never made the company much money. The Metro took the good part of the Mini, the engine and box and put it into a much nicer snd much more useful package.
@@dawnkennedy3583 just wasn't the great leap forward that the mini was, which is a globally recognised icon. Metro was just a rehash of dated engineering to try catch up to the competition.
I like that they gloss over the decision to continuing using the A-series engine (over 30 years old by the time Metro debuted).
Yes true but the A series worked well in the Metro at launch,Renault,Fiat and Ford also had very old engines at that time too. Metro was more economical that the Foreign imports. Eventually the K series did replace the ageing A series.
Is the narrator Tim Turner? The voice of the "Look at Life" Documentary film series made during the 60s.
The protracted development times meant it was a car for the 1970s introduced at the start of the 1980s
It was still a success though. They sold millions.
Owned an mg metro, that was good fun.
All the other small family cars that invaded the UK had 4 doors and a hatchback, only the less family friendly versions were 2 door hatchbacks.
Guy I worked beside had one of these, always seemed really spacious in the front passenger seat.
great music
The initial TV commercial is so British:
Invoke fear of invasion by anything foreign
Promise a happy end
Peddle some local crap as a solution
Get lost when the public realize what they have been saddled with.
Does anyone else see parallels with current events?
Ho avuto una metro 1.0 Mayfair, 2' serie, anno 1985, acquistata nuova , mai avuto problemi di carrozzeria né di meccanica, solo dopo molti anni di utilizzo ha accusato problemi con le sospensioni hydragas, ottima auto.
And as the Austin Metro was released, we counted down those final.... seconds, from disaster!
I wonder where they all are now. You don't see old bangers on the road these days. Apart from the 200 cars found in a Welsh mine, where are all the others? On a Bedfordshire Airfield?
how did they miss the petrol pissing out of the back wheel
It was a faulty petrol filler cap and seal. When the tank was full and turn sharp to the left fuel would bypass the seal on the cap and run out over the O/S/R tyre. I witnesses this happening in front of me on the A10. She spun around right in front me and I just missed her by inches. She was so shocked by what had happen they took her to hospital. Some of us just pushed the car to the side of the and locked it and gave her the keys. Just as the Police were turning up.
All this testing & they didn't notice the cars rotting & they still had to recall metros due to leaky fuel fillers
You’ve directly quoted Quentin Wilson there! From the old TopGear! 😂
to all the haters it's sales figures state it was a success. most 80s cars rusted so that argument is rather droll...
to the people that slagg off their own products they are the problem. the German attitude is to be the best and keep working at it not to mock or laugh but to evaluate and upgrade. I live in a country surrounded by huge majority of lazy nah saying morons who still continue to slagg off there own home produced products instead adopting a attitude of wanting to achieve better...
You clearly did not drive one. I passed my test in one of these wheezing pieces of crap. The bus driver steering wheel was a joke
+Juan Moorechants
nah like a million plus others I owned a couple.
I guess you drive a bmw now and your a employee.
@@jonathanwills94 lol no!
@@robfuller7841 I've had many over the years and they drive very well.
@@dawnkennedy3583 Fair enough. Drive well in comparison to what though? A tractor? A steamroller? The Metro in theory should have been a lot more durable than it was.
Awesome car but is anyone going to mention the awesome synth music from 25:24 to 27:30 ...? 🤘🤘
As aerodynamic as a Porsche. Yeah ok.
This one:
cdn.bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/5b118c6190cbc_15277053390550370d7a6d3f511IMG-1574-940x707.jpg
B reg Metro was my first brand new car...water leaks in and out, oil leaks etc, customer services told me they were having development problems with the bodyshell and engine! Trade day at the Motor Show did I make a nuisance of myself, you bet I did! Sold it and bought a Nova.
Sadly this is what killed BL in the end. For all the emphasis on quality in the video, it was not quite the same in the real world.
There are a lot of critics on here. All I can say is that my mum had one,my brother had one, my uncle had one and grandparents had one. None of those cars (some brand new and some second hand) had any trouble. The only issue was with my brother's and that's because he drove it into the front of the house. Basic for sure and not exactly pretty. For myself I never owned one but rather had an Austin Mini and even though I'm over 6 feet it was still a great car.
My family had a few, the 1.0 versions and honestly we must have gotten the only 2 that worked properly lol. It ate water pumps every 25000 miles though...
They were bloody diabolical. I remember my brother beating his fists on the steering wheel because his was constant breaking down.
We Had A Few Of These Car's And They Were Really Good, Fast, Powerful And Controllable. 😃👍. Just Remember When You Are Going To By A Metro City From Someone, Make Sure You Check Underneath Before You Buy It, Because The Underneath Of The Car Could Be Rotten With Holes In.
You know, had this car been launched five years earlier, BL probably had a fighting chance. Much like the Maestro and Montego, the Metro had really good characteristics for a car. But by the time it was launched, it was all dated in design and style, and it's workforce just wasn't motivated enough.
But I think what did kill BL, it was always late to a party that they desperately needed to be there first. Gestation period for car design was at a glacier speed, and hanging onto aging models hurt their future growth.
In my own home state of Wisconsin, we had our own BL in the town of Kenosha, where it was home to the American Motors Corporation. They both had a lot in common, but they were underdogs within their own market.
Where the differences end, BL did get government support. Where as AMC wasn't, because US Congress decided to bailout the giant but ineffectual Chrysler Corporation and let AMC to rot. If it wasn't for Renault to give a hand in 1979, it would have been the end of AMC.
Frankly, I wished Chrysler had bit the dust in 1980, and wished AMC was given the right to live. But that's wishful thinking today.
It certainly was not dated both in design & style when it was launched...BL knew their market & proved to be VERY popular, the Metro was everywhere...
Wish I could have owned one in the states
19:09 The passenger is like a ragdoll!
A truly ok handling car. Rust In Peace.
Was that French commercial made by Flight of the Concords?
On a lighter note I remember was young waiting on a bus at the bottom of a hill and I heard this hummmm barrel ing up and over the hill a mark 2golf stopped at the bus stop and the metro ploughed into the back of your man had a big long tow bar on the back of the mk2golf let's put it this way bits of the gear box and front valance were on the back shelf with 3in it
Typical British pessimism from the comments section. If your telling me that this was any worse than a Peugeot or Renault at that time I would definitely disagree. This had the potential to be an excellent car but again we build a good car and fail to continue with improving it and allowing it to mature.
At 6:58 cool dress shirt with the engineer on the right. Very pimp!
1.43 The smoke isn't there to make it look more appealing, thats just the gasket going.
Longbridge is super busy again, as a retail park
As a guy that works in manufacturing for the American auto industry i feels for British people and the loss of there industry.
6:21 On the bottom edge of the door. Is that rust?
Man we have a new record, rust before it was even released to the public.
They should have looked into rust proofing. They should have given it a normal suspension and use the saved money to develop the five speed gearbox earlier and have the steering column in a normal position. Then, they should not have halted quality control after production started. If that would have all been done, the car could have been successful. Although, I must say, to someone coming from the continent, it looks a bit strange from the outside.
My first car was a 1 litre and aper from the rust it was a great car
they even did a Turbo metro.
Ant Laud still a 4 speed box redlined /@96 mph. Was geared same as the 1.0 litre so no faster just got there quicker
Trouble is most people commenting on this weren't even around when they out. Wasn't just British cars that were crap years ago. Fiat, Citroen and Skoda were both considered utter junk. Problem is they got their act together and BL didn't.
Skoda, utter junk? What the hell are you talking about? I had an Estelle and it was fantastic. Tough, durable and reliable!!!
I had a 1989 1.0 city metro it really wasn't as bad some people have said
I meant 19:03 and 20:31
So how did it go so wrong?
Imagine trying to pull birds with one of those!
I never had a problem.
@@thegamereviewandreallifech1910Metro had a GTi??
The _latter_ Metro had a *_GTa,_* but I don't think that would've influenced women either way if I'm honest.