Metro in Retro

[bungeejumper]

While we're in reminiscing mode, the Austin Metro is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary. The butt of so many jokes - and not always for entirely good reasons, it won a lot of awards for its styling, which even the Germans admired. I had one in 1982, my first ever new car, and TBH it wasn't bad at all. Massively better road feel and steering capability than the Fiesta of the day, which felt like you were constantly driving on ice.

Against that, they had the fatal design flaw of all Austins, a distributor that sat right up front of the engine where it would get soaked so that they wouldn't start on damp mornings. Neither of ours ever misbehaved like that, but there were a lot that did.

My then girlfriend (i.e. wife) had a Cooper engine and close ratio gearbox fitted into hers, and it was capable of giving the traffic light cowboys a surprise. But after twelve years, rust and a one-star European crash safety result ( ) were the end of the line - hers developed a deathly graunch from the suspension that could be heard half a mile away, so that was that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... m-54423328 . Can't say I think very much of the way that the one in the top picture has been parked.

BJ

[AleisterCrowley]

My mate Al was a serial purchaser of Metros in the 80s
I'm not a car person, but from memory they used to rust badly around the wheel arches, due to build up of mud, and poor rustproofing in that area

[bungeejumper]

I'm not a car person, but from memory they used to rust badly around the wheel arches, due to build up of mud, and poor rustproofing in that area

Rustproofing was an added-cost extra for most cars in the 1980s! You could accept a thin coating of whatever the manufacturer had slapped onto it, or you could shell out a hundred or so for third-party undersealing, wax cavity injection and assorted other treatments. Having had a Mini rust right through, I went for that option. A lot didn't.

BJ

[AleisterCrowley]

Waxoyl !