The Austin Metro Story
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 มิ.ย. 2019
- It’s 1975 and the newly created British Leyland Motor Corporation faces an enormous challenge. Petrol prices are skyrocketing, and customers are rushing to buy fuel economical small hatchbacks like the Fiat 127 and Renault 5. British Leyland’s own Mini which created this category way back in 1959, is showing its age. It’s too small and is much less practical. Britain had just entered the Common Market, a forerunner to the European Union, and what British Leyland needs is a class-leading “supermini” of its own to take on the rest of Europe. What it doesn’t have is the money to develop it.
The Austin Metro was also known as the Austin Mini Metro, MG Metro, Rover Metro, and Rover 100.
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I'm a mailman in Rosenberg Texas...I put my headphones in and listen to big car. I'm a big fan of car reviews like "Regular Car Reviews " and history lessons like these and "Motorweek retro" .This is right up my ally. Please keep making videos. I love these and tell everyone about them.
I'm glad I'm entertaining you during your mail deliveries! BTW mail vans are mentioned in the EVs video for the 60s/70s and the 80s one also.
I can just hear an irate Alan Partridge crying, "They rebadged it, you fool"
P
"I'll just talk over you"
Nicely put together. I used to work at a Austin Rover dealership in the late eighties. The reason why every metro succumbed to front wing rust was because a piece of foam was fitted from the factory in the wheel well between wing and body to stop vibration. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that after only a few years of British weather this piece of foam just rotted the wing from inside and once the rust became visible, it was too late.
I wonder if you worked on mine, 6201 miles from new
Could be. The garage was called Ivy Garage and it was on Moston Lane, Manchester. Just had a look at your metro video and the car looks mint. Can’t be many left like that. The piece of foam that absorbs the vibration and water is located in the inner wing up inside next to the A post.
Assuming folks actually had their cars inspected on time, how much of that kind of damage was covered by that rust warranty Quentin Willson mentioned in his 1991 Top Gear report?
Was that design flaw continued into Rover 100 production?
In all probability. Austin Rover were natural bodgers when it came to car design. Montego, maestro and rover were all hacked together.
When I met my wife for the first time she had one, terrifying me with her driving through Birmingham she was able to defy the laws of physics and always but always went round roundabouts in the outside lane whatever the exit. Stolen twice and recovered twice, the second time it had been valeted. So easy to park and fantastic visibility.
Yes, the visibility in 1970s/80s cars was amazing. Modern cars seem like those 1920s ones with a tiny back window, due to all the padding, headrests, pillars etc.
Had a D reg, bought for about £300 in 1998. Got 62mpg on one motorway run from London to Manchester although normally was around the 55. One day the clutch cable snapped and as I wouldn't have money to replace it till the end of the month I taught myself to start in 2nd gear and drive clutchless by matching revs at each shift. A skill that made me a smoother driver for life. Sold it for almost as much as I'd paid. The first and last car in my life that I didn't lose a lot of money on. Good times!
Haha good story. I hired a Metro to go camping with 2 mates in Cornwall. Picked it up from a garage in Urmston because it was cheap rates. Didn't take long to work out why, there was a problem with the choke, you had to leave it out for 5 miles before you could push it in, then the exhaust fell off in the middle of Cornwall somewhere. Got towed back to the campsite and had to wait two days for parts to get delivered to the local mechanic at "Parc An Creet Garage". It was a slower pace of life back then. Happy memories.
@@oddities-whatnot that's an even better story! Yes life was more relaxed and at least things could be fixed or jerry rigged or some ingenious solution found. Now you have to take it back to the stealer for an oil change.
Loved this video thank you. Learned to drive in a Metro, first car was a Metro HLE and later had an MG Metro. Fond memories.
Ah the metro, my first car in the late 80's. It was brown which was an awful colour but it helped to hide the rust, which was on every panel. It was very reliable though.
I think one of the engines was the same they shoved in the Mini (1 litre) in the 80s. I had one of them, strong engine I didn't half hammer it !
Thanks so much Mr big car, I have extremely fund memories of my red Austin Metro 1.3L F reg, it was my first car when I came to the U.K. back in 1996. It served me well in my College days in South Wales, it of course had body corrosion issues at the floor pan, but other than that quiet an economical & reliable car, but could have done with a fifth gear , and an OHC (overhead Cam engine)as it labored on the Motorway, plus the occasional misfire when pushed to hard.
I love your channel, can't wait for more. I leaned to drive in an 'E' reg metro. One week before my test in October 1995 my instructor upgraded to a brand new Rover Metro. I still passed first time. The Metro is also worthy of the mention of MG and MG Turbo models, and of course the legendary 6R4.
I had an 1100s Rover Metro on a K plate - just before it became the Rover 100. loved it. Great first car! Red seatbelts too!
I learnt to drive in a 1992 Metro, I was given a 1993 metro van from the company I worked for, and in 1994 my parents passend the roverr 100 on to me.
Passed my test in a 1.1, then upgraded to the GTA then GTI, I would love one on my driveway today, though in fairness I bought another 1.1 K a lot of years later for nostalgia
and the jack went through the sill the first time I got a puncture and scrapped it
So, people stopped buying Metro's because of the poor safety rating. But carried on buying the old Mini! Both cars had real character, unlike modern cars. I can understand why these cars are treasured as classics now.
My first car that I bought in the UK when I first moved here in 2006 was a 1995 Metro. Great little car, a joy to drive. I bought it from a backyard car dealer in Essex with 11 months MOT. I had 11 months trouble free, fun motoring for just £495 - but then it failed my first experience of the MOT test. The floor was completely rusted away and was ready to collapse at any moment 😭 It also had so much wrong with it that the list was as long as my arm.
It should never have passed that MOT a year before. Dodgey Arthur Daley car dealer.
My little red Metro ended up at a wrecker, probably where they all are now. It would have needed a total rebuild to get through that MOT in 2007.
Hi from Spain. The Metro was my 1st car. I had a 1.3 version. I will never forget the good times I had with it
I loved the Metro. In 1980, my then-girlfriend had the original miniMetro; I learned to drive with BSM and passed my driving test in Metros; I drove Metro cars and vans at work; in 1986, my first new car was an MG Metro 1.3 MkII - I was working as a DJ and easily fit my gear in the Metro with the rear seats down. In 2003 my then-wife got her first car: a second-hand Metro Sport, and I fell in love with Metro all over again. All relatively easy cars to service and work on but the poor quality, thin steel bodies made them rust-buckets so few survive in their native UK which uses salt on its roads ib winter.
So, the Metro, designed to replace the Mini, was instead replaced by the Mini....
Ha ha, exactly!
The Metro was a hatchback Mini on even Mini subframes. That is why it looked odd as the wheels were too far inboard because of the Mini subframes.
Better yet, put hydrogas suspension on a car that is supposed to be cheap. The only thing they could get with it was raising costs and making sure it's going to fail too soon and most garages would be unable to repair it, not gaining anything as an average driver could barely tell that cars have suspensions at all.
@@johnburns4017 They were not Mini sub frames, they were new for the Metro.
@@donaldasayers
They were too narrow for sure.
Parents had one when I was a kid. Great little car.
A another great video! In the mid 90s, I used to see a Heinz 57 metro on a daily basis on my way to work. Red bodywork with silver lower half and 57 on the side. I believe this was a competition prize that Heinz did.
I entered that competition, never won a car though!
I inherited a 1981 Mini Metro in the 1990's. it was a disaster. It was a rust bucket. It had a manual choke which was very temperamental. You had to get it just right or the carb would flood and you had to pump the accelerator to get it started. The turning circle was ridiculously large. There are turns that I took in the Metro where I had to reverse to complete which nowadays I take in my full size van in one go. One thing I can say for the Metro, it certainly had character.
Maybe you did not look after it,
@@buffi944 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for your video. It was great ! I had many Metros including an early MG Metro E Reg in white (second hand) and the last one I owned was a brand new GTa Metro in Red, I loved them all. They were an amazing little car and fun to drive.
i had 4 of these a 1ltr basic model , an MG metro , an MG turbo , loved that model and a rover 100 version , i thought they were great little cars if we still had a british car industry we could still have a current model of this great little car
If they didn't buy them back then.....
Great video.. My first car was an Austin Metro Mayfair second was a rover metro GTA then later I had a rover 100 .
Great fun little cars
I worked in a company owned by the danish importer. Our director drove an MG Montego turbo. I was so in love with that car, so I'd ask him if he was satisfied with that car.
"Keep away from that piece of crap" he answered.
"It's noicy and everything "talks" inside" he said.
I looked at the Maestro and found some new love for my old Ford Taunus 2,0
I had a 1986 metro cityX for my first car and loved it. My dad had a metro before me and my sister's first car was a brand new 1992 metro. Great cars.
My first car when I was 17 in 1995 was a 1983 gold metro city . It was a A reg and It was so basic it didn’t even have a passenger wing mirror . Me and my mates went to lots of scrap yards getting bits off crashed metros that had a higher spec . I even fitted a Rev counter to my car . Swapping out the instrument panel from I think a crashed 1.3 Vanden plas . I of course kept my Speedo as it had my milesage on . Also got a passenger wing mirror !!!
I just loved my Metro. It was my first car after passing my driving test. Sky blue and very nippy. I had another white one some years later, and as you say, it has a soft spot in my heart for all these reasons. Thanks for a great video and trip down memory lane. (Still really wanted a TR6 though lol)
Great video as always. Brings back memories of learning to drive as my instructor used a Metro, but after passing I drove a Mini!
How about a video on the Panda? Whilst I've out grown them, they were and are great little 4x4s with a long history.
Seconding this. I'd love to know how on earth a 4x4 Panda came into being, and the fact they stuck with that concept in the new Panda as well - it's nuts. Brilliant, but still nuts.
@@lmlmd2714 The 4x4 Panda was very successful in the alps regions of its native Italy as well as in the Swiss alps as it was the cheapest 4x4 car available there. The original 4x4 Panda continued to be produced along the normal fwd Panda until production ended in 2003. Also, you can call the car odd, but it did its job and was a very good off-roader, thanks to it having a great Steyr 4x4 technical layout, unlike today's modern SUVs that would get stuck in the smallest puddle. Fun fact: There was even a short-lived 4x4 version of the VW Golf 2 called the Golf country. That was an oddball that would deserve its own story as well.
All flat glass too. Bloody horrid cars, I remember I was about 8 being shoved in one and thinking this is a pile of death.
I have one and would enjoy to see that.
@@lmlmd2714 I have one. We like small cars and live at the top of a steep twisty hill in a country with long cold winters. 4x4 we need. It is also surprisingly fast with 95hp turbo diesel.
First car I ever bought back in 1995, was a 1983 Y Reg (GSB 810Y) and cost me £295. Loved it and wouldn't mind having another wee shot of driving one for a bit of
nostalgia
It was the first car I bought too. In July 1995, it was a 1984 Mk.1 for £395 but it had 1 years tax so the seller told me I was paying £270 for it really. A462 RBH. Had it for 3 years, kept breaking down but loved it. Yes, I keep dreaming about it and would love to have a little drive in one.
A friend of mine had an MG Metro Turbo in the early 90s, and it was a great little car. It was very nippy, although with a bit of turbo lag.
I passed my test in a metro and had one for a few years. Great little car, and reliable !!
I've had 4 Metros, 2 A series and 2 Rover ones. The K series Metros especially are brilliant little cars. Euro NCAP has a lot to answer for, it's why people are driving round in oversized tanks these days!
Still own one at 44 yrs old and probably always will, something about them I just love them
Thanks for your great videos and good luck with the new channel
New Channel?
My mum had a White 1987 Austin Metro CityX (Reg: D147 RDV). It was a great little car. She never had a problem with it mechanically. Suffered with rust in places but had the car until 1996 when it was replaced with a F reg Automatic Datsun Micra. Now that was a rust bucket. Bloody thing fell to bits. She got an E reg 2.0 MG Montego after that. 323,000 on the clock before that went the scrappers. Bodywork fell apart around the rest of it. On its last MOT, the Mechanic said the engine and gearbox in the Montego were as good as the day they were built. The rest......of it was crumbling away. Both the Metro and Montego my mum had were brilliant cars and never missed a beat.
Cant believe i missed this video !!
Nice one thank you.
first car I had at 18 (grandmother pass me down). I liked it, served it's purpose well
I had an MG metro when it had done well over 100k miles. it was great on fuel (40MPG) and great fun to drive. But like many cars of its era rust was its biggest problem. Mine was 13 years old when I bought it and had already had loads of welding done before I bought it and had more during its time with me. We ended up only having it for 2 years before scrapping it but parts of it live on in my Minijem GT kit car such as the steering column. Great memories thanks for sharing :-)
My first driving test in 1982 was cancelled as the BSM Metro wouldn't start. The instructors bump started it but the examiner wouldn't let me do the test. Bizarrely I had 2 after passing!
I loved my Metro (3door) it had a spacious cabin, drove well and could be serviced and repaired simply, quickly and economically by the owner.
The tailgate and split rear folding seats gave it good carrying capacity for those 'van' moments.
To be honest, seeing that NCAP video was the point that my enthusiasm waned, whilst I didn't expect to be involved in a front end collision, the prospect of being in the driver's seat if it did happen wasn't good to contemplate.
I hadn't realized that an all aluminium bodied replacement was on the drawing board, that'll forever be filed under 'What Might've Been!'
Thank you for another excellent video on one of my cars.
Granada TV Rental used the Metro as a van, the techs had to hump around 26" TVs, parts and tools in the back of these things. Glad to say I had an Escort 1.4 at the time.
Had a 1990 Metro GTA loved it wish I still had it
Great channel…...and my first car :-)
I'm getting old.
One of my earliest childhood memories was stood on the beige carpet of a brown Mini Metro. Give me a Metro Vanden Plas 500 with the rare pepper pot alloys over a Fiesta Ghia X Mk1 any day.
My daughter had a Rover Metro as her first car. I drove it quite often. It was fab town car. She replaced it with a Corsa, then a BMW Mini. The Metro was the best town car of the bunch.
Had a Metro GTi 16v (1990) in red……used to handle sooooo well. Reliable, comfortable and good looking - had a real connection with that car.
Passed my test in one, Brilliant!
@nw8000 Me too!
British car history is really something else. alot of name changes, weird and super old history and many many cool cars to discover
Excellent video. My Granddad's final car was a Rover Metro, H reg', in cranberry red with an immaculate cream interior. Nice little car.
I like to watch this video before going to sleep the soothing voice helps a lot. My goal know is to watch them all
My intention is to be a sleep aid to the world.
I was a BMC Leyland etc specialist mechanic in NZ. From the first super lightweight thin steel Minis to the horrible early Metros. The best thing about all these A series cars was the spare parts commonalities. To my mind the best of all were the late 60's series 2 Morris 1100. The first ie series 1 were good but had thick steel and poor disc brakes. This was fixed with swinging caliper discs (A great UK invention), wider ventilated wheel rims and the best steel bodywork. The series 3 and 1300 were not as good, thin steel and fatigue cracks and the 1275 broken engine mounts and primary gear failures. I had a fleet of used 1100's that I hired out, many people bought those cars because with mechanics TLC they were really nice to drive. The Minis were great money makers, always giving trouble, rust, petrol pump, teeth off first gear, broken engine mounts, batteries falling thru corroded boxes, oil and brake fluid leaks, you name it.
Taking 10 minutes and a few seconds out from all the stress of hospitality at this time and enjoying the momentary step away from it all. I'll possibly have time to watch all the rest soon.....
My mothers first car was a red early mk1 Austin Metro manual. She got it up till the mid 90's. I remeber that it was a very popular car back then. It had the deep headlights, 4 slotted wheels and double fog lights in the rear bumper. Most of them had just one.
Also i remember the ride in the back seat was pretty rough over speedbumps. Later she bought a mk1 Renault Twingo to replace it wich was much more comfortable.
The car went to a guy who would use it as a donor car for parts. He would make one good metro out of 2 or 3 crappy ones.
Today not many are left, sadly enough.
I had a 1.4 litre automatic Metro. Great car. Very reliable, it had good performance, it was comfortable, and could carry a family of 4 with holiday luggage
Started driving in early 85 when I was 17 first driving my dads Mk3 Escort then BSM with the metro I found it a nice car drove a what your could call a basic city then a four door updated one ,went into a one man driving school passed my test on a mk1 fiesta later that year one lesson per week £7 then blimey ,passed second time ,but I did pass my PCV test first time on a metro ,an MCW metrobus at London transport we called them metros there ,really enjoyed the video and others you have done also subscribed to your channel ,all the best
My Dad worked on this car and my great uncle was given one when he retired.
i had two Metro, in the same time, the Austin Metro 1300 and the MG Metro Turbo, the Austin Metro 1300 was modified in "fast road modified" with engine tuning, cylinder head, camshaft Piper asymetric 285, modified exhaust pipe and inlet manifold with a carburettor Weber 45 DCOE 13, it turned it into a fighter jet! The MG Metro Turbo was also equiped with a road modified camshaft,so equiped with the turbo, she had a very good torque! So, my last word will be " You won't believe it until you drive it!!!!
Great video I had an mg metro and I had it for years and loved it
So did I !
Me too - great to drive - but had a persistent misfire problem that I just could not fix - not quick by today’s standards, and hampered by only 4 gears - but the 17+ “MG” badges made it even faster !
I had my first driving lesson in a metro (1985). Terrible car and a potential death trap in an accident. My grandfather had an auto metro and managed to drive it through his garage wall after hitting the accelerator rather than the brake. MG metro was way too fast for the power. The 6R4 is the one I would have (with a full cage); amazing engineering and performance. A few years ago I was involved with the demolition of Longbridge which included pulling down new West works where the metro was built (robots every where!)
Just taken ownership of a VP Metro,so much more comfortable than some of todays' hard sprung cars.
Plus: you can actually service the car and see the engine !! Great fun.
Great video and loads of info I didn't know 😃 I have had 9 metros and loved them all. Fantastic car and great fun to own 👌
The montego and maestro were also chronically underfunded.
Our government never wanted the responsibility of state run anything!
The Montego and Maestro where chronically awful.
Yeah I know & that idiot Johnson wants to scrap the BBC licence fee now.
i was in Germany in 1980 went to purchase the metro and ended up with an allegro glad I did now loved that car
Mandy thanks your Metro Story. Very fine done Video!! In our family we drove fifteen Metro from 1985 up to 2017
my uncle pipkins was on the design team , I have lots of the original drawings and plans for the project :-)
I bought a 1300 shortly after they were launched to replace my aging 1275 GT Mini which I loved. My most vivid memory is going to collect it from the showroom. I can't remember the full price but it was something and 25p. I made my cheque out for the rounded down price but the salesman demanded 25p in coins before he would release it. It was the last Austin/BL car I ever bought.
Looks like a good little car, we never saw them in Australia, Leyland were only selling buses here by then!
Loving this channel. Really, very informative and interesting. Sure I’m not the first to suggest this but I’d love to see you cover the Mini itself.
As for the Metro, it was my first car after passing my test and I loved it. She was Mabel. I stupidly replaced it with a Mark V Escort and always regretted it. My dad had 3 Metros in sucession when I was a child including an MG Metro to finish with. A little suprised it didn’t get a mention in your video in hindsight. But still great stuff.
Girlfriend had a 1.4 90bhp rover 114. Wicked fast and fun, scary how near side window and rear hatch were to occupants head.
I was an instructor for BSM from 1987 until l left for another company, but 12 months later I joined AA The Driving School and inherited a Rover 114SLi. The difference was ridiculous. The 1.0 Metro revved well but was pretty slow. The later 1.3GS was much better equipped but felt asthmatic and wasn't much quicker. The steering was heavy and unresponsive and handling was sluggish. Then there was the driving position! The 1.4SLi was a world apart. The engine would zip round to the red line, it was more roomy, the driving position was far better and the handling was superb on 155 section tyres. You really could steer it on the throttle like the magazines said. After passing l actually advised pupils to try and buy one if they could, something l'd never say about the old Metro. Right up until the Fiesta 1.25 Ghia arrived.
I had a 1992 model. Its 1.1 petrol engine was incredibly smooth and free revving and really nice power for its size.
I had the rover metro Gti and lived it.
Had an MG Metro, handled like a dream.
So did I, until I blew it up on my way home one wet and cold night...Tiny car - MASSIVE explosion...!!
I had an arum white mk1 MG Metro. It was a B plate 1984(passed my test in it) . It was 5 yrs old when I bought it and 11yrs old when a dozy woman driving a beemer t boned me after she completely got the mechanics of a roundabout wrong and turned my car into a banana as I was on my way home from a 12hr night shift. The most fun car to drive I've had to date. Only rust it really had was bits on the sills but not serious and one small rust hole in the floor. I knew many people that owned Metros and the only ones that suffered with engine probs were the ones that were thrashed. If I could get hold of a tidy one at a sensible price, I would buy one. Last year a friend who owns a garage called me to say he had a customer that had a mk1 MG Metro for sale in met Green in tidy condition, I was so excited but sadly it had a vinyl roof!!!! Never seen one before but that put me off.
Thanks for another excellent video. Really well put together. Would love to have seen something about the MG and VDP versions too.
Great video as always, My wife had 3 Metros and I drove her 1985 1.0L for years it was a great little car, I much preferred it to my brother-in-law's 1.0 fiesta which was slightly faster on the straights, but the metro always clawed it back up hill great memories .
Loved the Metro, I thought they we're great fun to drive, Loved a nice little B road and was always fun going through a hedge which led in to woodland area, Best £100 I ever spent.
Passed my test in the Austin Metro 1ltre had several run about’s in late 1980’s they where cheap to run.
I'm in Canada... back at the end of the 80s, I bought a copy of Alexei Sayle's "The Fish People Tapes", where he had a background song called "Metro to the Disco". I still remember it, and now I have a much better idea about what he was getting at. :D
I was a expecting the legendary 6R4 to get a mention and the MG variants. Great video though!
My first car was a 1986 3-door 1.0 metro. Loved it!
I hired a rover metro in 1995 and was impressed with it..the ride was spot on
I remember a friend moved to Worthing from Liverpool and paid to hire a Metro 1.1S for me to take them down ( have a weekend etc ) . I absolutely caned it there and back and vaguely recall it only costing about a tenner in petrol ( 1991ish, same as the last image in the video, red too ) was quite nippy and fun, even for an overweight bloke of 6'4". Don't seem to see many quirky little cars anymore. Enjoyed the film more than I thought I would :) Cheers
Very good video!
We were very lucky with all the different models, Metro Surf 1.0 up to Rover 114 gti . We never had bad fails with the little friend. They all were "Cars to beat the world" . In Germany we often drove as fast as possible on several Motorways. From our view one of the best small Cars ever made
My son’s just acquired one, he’s 15 his intention it to recommission it in time for him to learn to drive, he’s got a bit of spanner spinning to do but it’s gonna be fun👍🏻
keep the oil topped up in the carb.
My boss had one on the early 90's. Had a lot of trouble with the suspension (leaks and seals), everyone else drove Subarus, Fords, Renaults, and no one envied him.
they also had a tendency to rot after a few years, the electrics were bad and the later models had a major problem wit the crankshaft, causing it to go after 30k miles.This guy has skipped at lot of those issues for some reason.
The gti and mg where my favourite cars. Pocket rockets, fun, brill❤
I had a 1993 Rover Metro 1.4 Diesel. I bought it in 2007 as a run about when cash was short. Drove it from Leeds to Scunthorpe whilst the fuel gauge was indicating I was running on fumes. I did, however, run out of diesel about a mile from home. Conked out just as I left the motorway, on a roundabout 🤦♂️ I actually quite liked the old rust bucket. It had 119000 miles on the clock and still had 6 months mot. The Metro was so quirky. The exhaust was blowing so it really did sound like a tractor. I spent almost nothing on fuel and kept it chugging along adding a litre or so of water every so often. I suspect the rad was giving up the go. It did overheat a few times but once I'd filled up the cooling system it returned to normal for a few hundred miles. I took the back seats out at one point to make a handy little van. The floor was past it's best but it coped with the heavy loads I shoved in the back. The seats were comfy enough on longer journeys. The offset pedals and steering wheel took a bit of getting used to. I had a nosey around the scrap yards and managed to get a towbar for it. The smallest towbar I've ever seen. I fitted it, well bodged it, and it was quite happy to pull the little trailer I had at the time. The most quirky feature/fault happened when it was time to stop the engine. Sometimes it would stop fine, sometimes I had to stall the engine. After messing around with it for a while I discovered I could stop the engine by switching the headlights on, turning off by key and switching the headlights off. Very very strange car but I'll never forget it 😊😊
You pick interesting cars to make videos of. My favorite one so far is the Stag video.
My first car was a brand new Metro in 1986, but the customer service at the main dealer was beyond shocking. I always remember picking it up after its first service, and finding the speedo disconnected, and discovered a list of delivery addresses under the seat. The next week, one of my colleagues said they spotted my car been driven at some speed though town, as if it had been stolen. After I complained, I got the car back with a dent in the door. After complaining about that I found that their paint job was pretty appalling. And while I was trying to get them to sort the dent out I saw them actually shunt a Range Rover off a ramp, which ended up on its side. I still cant believe what a bunch of cowboys they were, and they weren't the only Rover main dealer cowboys I came across either. Had there been such a thing as social media (and dash cams) back in those days I would have hosted and posted the living daylights out of them. The dealer went bust sometime afterwards and, when the Rover group finally went bust, I just thought it was karma! One thing I would say though - in the 5 years I had it it never ever broke down. A great product, let down by unbelievably shoddy main dealers, who probably thought the world owed them a living.
I have one still... i bought it a few years ago for nostalgia purposes... I still think they are great wee cars
Loved my Metro even though the first engine lasted one mile for each of the 3930 quid it cost me! 😱
It was so spacious - I once got a Marshall 4x12“ cab and head, bass guitar, and drum kit in it. On the way back I got the drummer on the front seat with only the snare drum on his lap! 🥁
Driving was lots of fun. Almost as nippy as the Mini.
1976 my dad was brought in to Leyland as a senior production engineer! he brought through the metro! after he had done his job he quickly left as was very unhappy about the new MD
My first ever car was a 1982 Y Reg Yellow Metro I loved it. I now drive a Skoda Citigo same sort of size.
Thank you for the video - it's well done. I have a soft spot for BL cars as many of my teachers had them. Sadly I did drive an auto Austin Metro as a courtesy car whilst my car was in for repairs - I didn't enjoy it. But I still have a soft spot for it!
I’m nearly 40 but my gran had one when I was about 10 so in the early 90s. The thing I remember most about it was the noise the reverse gear made. It was quite unique to the Metro as far as I remember. Quite a high pitched whine
In 1987, i was given a new metro 1.3L van it had amazing carrying capacity
I learned to drive in a Sunbeam Alpine 1725cc and a Ford Capri 1.6XL Face lift, happy days 😃
My fondest memory of the Metro?
Never having to drive one ever again.
@barry rudge I'm happy to say I never had that "pleasure"... being a passenger in one was bad enough.
My MG Metro handled better than my Mini, not a reliable vehicle but I did outrageous things with it, massive amounts of lift off overstear. From A to B, quicker than a Golf. It was a Go-cart. Sorry you didn't have the nerve to exploit it.
@@leftpastsaturn67 I loved my MG Metro, but never sat in the back...rather bumpy?
@@iseeolly9959 "Didn't have the nerve to exploit it"?
No, I just don't drive like a dick.
I loved my metro, it was only £15 and the heater was amazing.