The Metro used virtually the same engine from the Mini / Austin 1100 from twenty year previously, innovation at its best ! , don’t make me laugh.
They were shite , no wonder the Japanese manufacturers were able to form a stronghold in Britain.
Austin Metro 40 years old
- Thread starter AB22 Easy Tiger
- Start date
The Metro used virtually the same engine from the Mini / Austin 1100 from twenty year previously, innovation at its best ! , don’t make me laugh.
They were shite , no wonder the Japanese manufacturers were able to form a stronghold in Britain.
double maxim
Striker
Target of choice for Hollycarrside joyriders in the late 90s. I was never a car thief but lads I knew were and they seemed shockingly easy to get into and start given how regularly there would be one flying around there with a 15 year old kappa tracksuited urchin at the helm.
Thewper1
Striker
I got stranded at the metro centre once.....about 20 yr old, on a date with a proper lass, in me MG Turbo, thought I was the bollocks.
Got back to the car after being to the pictures, late at night and car park deserted....some scrote had got in, seen the imobiliser (was a touchy key connector thing on the dashboard) and then ripped it out to see if it was a real or dummy one, rendering the car imobilised!
Being f***ing useless, and it was about midnight, I had to call me old man out to the rescue. Nee leg ower for Thewper that night.
cosmicchris00
Striker
Wasn't it more aerodynamic in reverse?
My statement is correct and it sounds like you need to read up a bit more on the UK car industry from 1945 up to present.
Stay behind after class and sharpen the rubbers.
The A series was hugely innovative in its day, but as usual the temptation to upgrade it a bit more, rather than develop a new engine was too much for the bean counters at British Leyland, so it was still in use long past its sell by date.
The marketing men in Leyland decided a turbo charged MG metro was required and the A series was to be used. Gawd knows what the poor power plant design manager thought but he had his brief
My mate had one, it was hilarious. The heat build up was such that you could lift the bonnet after a run and watch things melt. He only had it a week and the turbo blew.
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I spent five years of my formative years fixing BL vehicles for a living , my statement about shite is correct, I could write a book about my experience on their products .
However I bow down to your superior knowledge.
double maxim
Striker
cosmicchris00
Striker
You should bow too you peasant.
The huge cost of an over staffed militant labour force can affect a car company in many strange ways.
In the end they simply weren't fit for purpose
What year's were you working on them?
cosmicchris00
Striker
77-82
used to feel sorry for those who bought them new
All cars were shite to some degree back then.
Me fatha had a Golf and the paint just came off. It also cut out after a mile every morning.
The Renault that me Ma had was never out of the garage.
The bloke up the road had a Toyota Corolla that looked really shit but never failed to start and also never broke down.
It's no wonder the Japanese walked in and took so much of the market.
cosmicchris00
Striker
True dat. However they were downright dangerous in the wet.
Every Toyota I owned was like an afternoon on the skid pan when it rained.
The Metro suspension was a work of genius and was so far ahead of Toyota at the time it was unreal.
yorkyexile
Striker
Learned to drive in a white MG version. Guy called Macmanus from Newton Hall was the S.O.M
Which was initially used in the Austin 1100 in the early 60’s and updated for the Allegro and later on the Metro.
# 64 , Hugely innovative
yorkyexile
Striker
my first motor was an 82 toyota corolla lift back thing and it was fucked. Bought it for £150 off my mams mate but the bloody thing was indestructible. Me dads cars from around the same period ,78 to early 80`s,he had when they were nearly new where shite. Even Leylands later efforts Montego`s Maestros etc were crap compared to Nissan Bluebirds etc
JohnSmithUK
Winger
Hydrogas/hydrolastic may have seemed old hat, but the quality shone through. If only they were screwed together better.Which was initially used in the Austin 1100 in the early 60’s and updated for the Allegro and later on the Metro.
# 64 , Hugely innovative
faith brothers
Winger
The one I learnt in was a base model mind you it was only £7 a lesson in 1985.
cosmicchris00
Striker
Which was initially used in the Austin 1100 in the early 60’s and updated for the Allegro and later on the Metro.
# 64 , Hugely innovative
Are you reading this post in a time machine, keep up FFS.
Read up on contemporary engine design and you will see just how innovative it was.
The design was so far ahead of its time, with future proofing that permitted development and production into the present century.
It was licensed around the world and ironically used as a base for those which later sounded the death knell for the once dominant UK motor industry.
By the 1980s the ship was sinking.
The production management were under such pressure to meet targets that they'd ship anything, resulting in occasional quality lapses of biblical proportions.
The design was fundamentally sound but cost cutting and penny pinching allied to the aforementioned issues led to, e.g. Montego's with chocolate wheel bearings, and other farcical cock ups.
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Jenks
Midfield
The hydrolastic suspension on mine used to squeak like fuck. Was my first car after I passed my test in 1989 - Y reg 1983 Metro from New Durham motors in Gilesgate. Went all over in it, including Torquay and back 2 years running. It never missed a beat - I had the Haynes manual for reference and used to pull the car to bits and put it back together again most weekends just to find out how it worked!
