WHY IT’S MIKE’S PICK ‘IT’S A MORE MODERN AND PRACTICAL MINI EQUIVALENT FOR ANYONE – LIKE ME –WHO PASSED THEIR TEST IN THE 1980s’
UP TO £5k TO SPEND
The Metro – codename LC8 – had a heck of a lot riding on its diminutive shoulders when it first appeared in 1980. For one thing, it was supposed to replace that titan of motoring icons, the Mini. And for another it had a lot of catching up to do, since it was rather late to the UK market supermini party that the Fiat 127, Renault 5 and Volkswagen Polo had joined during the early 1970s.
And all credit to BL; the new car hit the ground running in a flurry of what modern eyes would probably consider rather jingoistic TV adverts – a far cry from the earlier ADO88 project that may have ultimately sired it but only once it had been developed into something bigger and more upmarket and with less ambitious – read expensive – running gear. It was, by all accounts, an instant hit, with buyers gravitating eagerly towards its spacious and cleverly-designed interior, perky performance and Mini-esque handling. More than a million were sold over its ten-year lifespan; even Lady Di had one.
Engine choices – all A-series – ranged from 1.0 to 1.3 (and later a 1.3 Turbo) allied to an in-sump four-speed manual or automatic gearbox and Hydragas suspension borrowed from the Allegro.
Poverty-spec models were distinguishable from loftier models by their separate bumper-mounted indicators and sidelights and buyers could choose from three- or (from 1984) five-door bodies.
Later iterations included MG and MG Turbo versions, a luxurious Vanden Plas and the van – the last car to bear a Morris badge – and it was a regular UK best-seller, peaking at more than 130,000 units in 1983, until the second-generation Fiesta stole its thunder in 1984. Later-still models got more modern-looking colour-coded bumpers and vastly improved interiors.
The car’s final hurrah came in 1990 in the shape of the heavily revised and much smoother-looking Rover Metro that brought with it such novelties as diesel engines, a five-speed gearbox and even a convertible, but the model only lasted for four years by which time its replacement – the Rover 100 – no longer bore the Metro name.
Metro prices are all over the place – at the time of writing you could choose between a dealer’s facelift-era 35k-mile 1988 1.3L on later alloy wheels for £3950, an (also dealer-supplied) 1983 pre-facelift 1275 HLE for £7250 or a tiny-mileage 1986 City 1.0 five-door for a shade under £10k. Don’t go thinking that buying and selling one will allow you to retire any time soon – unless you have pockets deep enough to consider one of the bonkers 6R4 rally monsters – but values, particularly of the increasingly rare early poverty-spec models and the MGs, are
