You know it by now. I am a car enthusiast in the broadest sense of the word. That is why you are probably not surprised that I also regularly visit various offer sites. There was a time when I also deliberately typed in the price category up to € 2.500. During the first years of the previous decade I was also surprised in combination with low asking prices. And came across a Rover 114 Ascot, automatic, in a typical British dark green color. With that typical British finish of the interior. For sale for pocket money, with a long time APK.
Counterbalance
Just as now, I was then sensitive to the counterbalances of the common sense pace of nations. As you know, I had the Starlet, and it effortlessly covered its kilometres within the current traffic situation. It kept up with the flow. The Mini Metro, which later came onto the market as the Rover 100, received less praise than the extremely reliable Japanese. I always thought the Metro and its successors were special. I often told people involved in car circles that at the time, but I was often told: 'don't start it'. Nevertheless, the sales figures (especially on the domestic market) were reason enough to question the external comments.
Reply
The successor to the Mini, launched in 1980, became the -rather late- British answer to the Fiat 127, Renault 5, Datsun Cherry, Toyota Starlet and Volkswagen Polo. The Austin Metro had to provide the British car fleet taken over by "the foreign invaders" with the colours of the Union Jack again. This was reasonably successful, because more than a million "Mini successors" left the factory for the domestic market alone. This was sensational, because the Metro fought a tough battle against the jet-black shadow that appeared especially in the early seventies. These dark clouds darkened the British automotive sun for a long time. The story is well known. And yet the British - in their own way - remained standing.
Special versions
And that also applied to the builders of the Austin Metro, who did not fail to add very specific versions to the range. The MG Metro was such a model, and also got a blown brother: the MG Metro Turbo. And yes, the Metro also came on the market as a Vandenplas. In this way, the British (until 1986 British Leyland, the legal successor became the Rover Group) used an age-old trick: Badge engineering. This happened on a smaller scale than before, but still: it was a pillar under the very reasonable sales of the Austin Metro and related models. And to indicate the sporty aspect: as the MG Metro 6R4, the Brit was a very regular guest in an illustrious rally category: Group B.
Rover Upgrade
However, the Metro always remained in the reputational shadow of the Japanese and the European continentals within its class. That is precisely why I found it so nice that in 1990 the model was continued on the European continent as the Rover 100. In 1994, that example was followed for the home market. The Rover 100 was still produced until 1998, and was available as, for example, Ascot, Knightsbridge and Kensington. The upgrade of the Mini Metro meant that the British got their own cachet in this class. With a car that took its own position compared to the Renault Clios, Deux-cent-cinqs, Seat Ibizas, Ford Fiestas, VW Polos and Daihatsu Charades. A car that fought against the past. And utterly, utterly sympathetic was.
Metro Man and No Metro Man
People always had something to say about the Metro, about the concept. Knowing that despite the suppression of the past as a concept it served for almost two decades (!), it didn't make it to the turn of the millennium by a few years. The long construction period was not for nothing. And that's why I found it so sympathetic. An enthusiast's car. An ideal second car too, in which you secretly wanted to drive more kilometers than in the car for daily use. I never bought the Rover 100. But I did buy the t-shirt, with the well-known quote by Alan Partridge from 1997 in six copies. I'm not driving a Mini Metro. I never put it on -despite the humorous sound-. Because I had too much sympathy for the car. A car that became a double million seller against all odds.
The convertible version of the Rover is especially cuddly.
My son once picked up a neat GTa for I think 250 euros. Only it didn't run, hence the low price. With a new distributor cap and rotor the engine purred quietly again. He had a lot of fun with it.
After three Min'is we also bought one, it was a lot bigger in terms of space and it also drove well.
Until we discovered just before we were going on holiday that the bottom was rusted through. Quickly to the garage where they did it. Welded in plates and so we could go on holiday after all. Then the rust monster struck and we got rid of it. It was a silver-grey with a glass roof in it, very pleasant in warm weather. Good memories of the Metro in terms of driving and comfort less so in terms of rust.