![]() In fact this was the era when BL chairman Michael Edwardes was walking a knife-edge between keeping the firm going on government hand-outs or turning out the lights. The use of the A-Series motor 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 mechanical bits but in truth the Fiesta in 1980 – the benchmark for small cars – was relying on the old pushrod Kent engine which was decades old. As you’ll see, the rest of isn’t quite so easy.Ī 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. Its origins in the Mini have been both its salvation and its downfall as a classic – back in the day, an MoT-failed Metro was usually descended on within minutes by Mini owners and stripped of its running gear, but today it does at least mean that the legions of Mini parts suppliers can cater for the A-Series powertrain. Once a regular in the best seller charts, the Metro is one of those everyday cars which has suddenly dropped off the radar and even the extensively redesigned Rover Metro is now a rare sight in everyday use.Īll of which means that the humble Metro has now regained a great deal of appeal if not as a better-driving alternative to the Mini but for its curiosity value alone. But ask yourself this: if you fancy a Mini for its giant-killing performance and handling but you just can’t live with its many compromises, then what about a car which offers all the fun of the Issigonis original but with a better driving position, much more interior space, a practical hatchback boot, a more comfortable ride… and a far cheaper entry price? That, in a nutshell is the Metro which – although Mini fans will hate me for saying it – took all the good bits of the original Mini and made them better. Here’s what you need to know before buying one.ĭestined 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. One reason was the red Metrol L, registration MPB 909W, driven by a certain Lady Diana Spencer.Often called the thinking man’s Mini, the MG Metro is a fast appreciating and endangered national treasure. Somewhat inevitably, British Leyland seemed to do its best to undermine the Metro’s potential with supply problems and industrial disputes – but there was a brief period when it was fashionable transport. The writer also noted, with shades of Les Dawson, improvements to a transmission that once resembled “a mother-in-law complaining from the depths of a cabin trunk consigned to Outer Mongolia”. Car of April 1981 thought the HLS version superior to the Ford Fiesta S and the Renault 5TS and that it took “a very big step towards the widening the acceptability of the small car”. His Snapdragon Yellow S also made the latest Morris Ital look as though it had recently emerged from the Ark.Īutocar complained of the gear whine but regarded the Metro as “very good indeed”. As Dominic Sandbrook wrote in Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982, the failure of the Metro meant “disaster not only for 145,000 British Leyland employees, but tens of thousands whose jobs in engineering, components, steel and rail depended on the car industry”.Īshton notes that despite the ‘go-faster’ stripes on TAR 778W it has the same 63bhp engine as the flagship Metro but it still looked rather more up-the-minute than the likes of the Fiat 127. Management informed the Launch Planning and Special Events team of the Austin-Morris division that the Metro was to be its direct replacement. In reality, the 1959 vehicle that virtually redefined mass-motoring would be sold until 2000 – alongside the car it was supposed to replace.īL let it be known that the development costs of its new hatchback amounted to £275 million and that it would be a “British Car To Beat The World”. ![]() The name Metro was chosen from a ballot of the factory workers, and the early versions bore the ‘Mini’ prefix partially through an agreement with Metro-Cammell but also to evoke an association with the classic Alec Issigonis design. ![]() Not least, it provided the transport for Margaret Thatcher to the 1980 International Motor Show in Brimingham, where it proved both a stellar attraction and the harbinger of a happier future for Leyland. History hasn’t been particularly kind to the Austin Metro, although this was the most critical British Leyland product of its era.
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