RE: MG Montego Turbo: Time For Tea?
Discussion
Had a BRG one as a company car in 1988/89 ish. F158 AFV if I remember correctly? Very quick in a straight line for its day - indicated 144mph on a slight downhill (abroad of course). Couldn't keep its coolant in though. After any sort of "making progress" the engine bay would be covered in coolant. The dealer changed everything including replacement head and eventually cylinder block, but still never managed to find where it was coming from. Other than that 100% reliable and a surprsingly comfortable and useable family car. Handling wasn't too bad although it's the only car I ever spun on a public road, but I was younger and stupider then. Came across a Peugeot 405 M16 once and had a lively 20 miles, where the Montego would pull away on the straights but get murdered on the bumpy twisty bits. All possible in the 80s with no speed cams and lots of empty Cumbrian backroads.
Had a couple of Maestros back in the day - a 1.6 and later a 1.3. The latter excelled on one holiday where it towed a very heavy caravan (loaded with an antique cast iron fire surround - don't ask!) to Wales and back without a murmur.
Spacious, airy and comfortable cars that were faithful, if not memorable family cars.
Factoid: The voice of the dashboard on the early cars was provided by the actress Nicolette McKenzie.
Spacious, airy and comfortable cars that were faithful, if not memorable family cars.
Factoid: The voice of the dashboard on the early cars was provided by the actress Nicolette McKenzie.
My Dad considered one of these back in 89. He ended up buying the 2.0 VandenPlas, mainly because of the leather and wood. Definitely the wrong choice. I remember thinking the MG Turbo looked incredible in white, so much better than the dark red metallic Pensioner bus he ended up buying
I really enjoy these threads about older uk cars.
6 pages and nobody has given a nod to Ian "Return of the Saint" Ogilvy (remember his white XJS and the catchy theme tune?)
some people clearly remember 30 odd years ago when these cars were new and know all about how highly respected they were at the time (dont laugh yoof). its easy to look back from where we are today but these cars were the business back in the day and would slaughter most stuff off the lights.
the XR3i brigade, Golf GTi's and Mantas etc didnt have a hope in hell in the 0-60 dash or even in the mid ranges but its quite funny though that these days 126mph top speed is truly nothing to write home about.....
the pale blue on the car in the showroom was probably the worse colour you you could go for but the red car driven by Steve does look great. blacks and whites also suited these saloons.
i also remember the Montego 1.6 advert with the stunt driver throwing it around into a tight parking space to an applauding audience of work colleagues then closing the door on his tie and then getting pulled back as he tried to walk off..... LOL.
Sunroof "slide AND tilt".....fun memories eh?
6 pages and nobody has given a nod to Ian "Return of the Saint" Ogilvy (remember his white XJS and the catchy theme tune?)
some people clearly remember 30 odd years ago when these cars were new and know all about how highly respected they were at the time (dont laugh yoof). its easy to look back from where we are today but these cars were the business back in the day and would slaughter most stuff off the lights.
the XR3i brigade, Golf GTi's and Mantas etc didnt have a hope in hell in the 0-60 dash or even in the mid ranges but its quite funny though that these days 126mph top speed is truly nothing to write home about.....
the pale blue on the car in the showroom was probably the worse colour you you could go for but the red car driven by Steve does look great. blacks and whites also suited these saloons.
i also remember the Montego 1.6 advert with the stunt driver throwing it around into a tight parking space to an applauding audience of work colleagues then closing the door on his tie and then getting pulled back as he tried to walk off..... LOL.
Sunroof "slide AND tilt".....fun memories eh?
ToothbrushMan said:
I really enjoy these threads about older uk cars.
6 pages and nobody has given a nod to Ian "Return of the Saint" Ogilvy (remember his white XJS and the catchy theme tune?)
6 pages and nobody has given a nod to Ian "Return of the Saint" Ogilvy (remember his white XJS and the catchy theme tune?)
Pickled said:
Ogilvy didn't he smoke around in XJ-S in Return of the saint? Surely that was more comfortable than the Monty.
Cleary not 
I had the little brother back in 1991, Mg Metro, snapped the throttle cable on the way to Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach with a couple of ladies in the car (the dizzy heights of yoof!) so jammed the throttle at 70% ish using an empty packet of TikTaks and drove the 40 odd miles home using the ignition switch as the "throttle".
Bloody nearly worked as well until I came to a roundabout and when decelerating by flicking the ignition off, the steering lock came on!! Oh how we laughed from that field. Happy days.
Bloody nearly worked as well until I came to a roundabout and when decelerating by flicking the ignition off, the steering lock came on!! Oh how we laughed from that field. Happy days.
andymadmak said:
J4CKO said:
The only problem I had with mine was I blew the diff apart, the pin in the middle wore, causing loads of shunt, I hammered out of a junction and it went bang, no drive and I coasted the rest of the way home, leaving a trail of cogs and gearbox oil, so god knows what the Turbo did to the gearbox, ironically a VW unit.
Found another and myself and a mate fitted it, well, mainly him, in the snow, at night, he wasn't very well after that, sorry Dave !
The VW box was only used on the smaller engined stuff. The 2 litre and turbo both used the Honda derived PG1 gearbox which was much tougher and had a nice clean shift feel. Found another and myself and a mate fitted it, well, mainly him, in the snow, at night, he wasn't very well after that, sorry Dave !
Anyway, typical Honda, Japanese crap, a weak link in the otherwise solid reliability of a British paragon of reliability and solidity
CHIEF said:
No offence Matt B (Honest) but i suspect that you were either very young or not even born when these were introduced.
Of course this vid is cringworthy and the Montego takes some stick but 0-60 in 7.3 and I think if memory serves me correctly the Maestro Turbo cracked 0-60 in just under seven seconds, This is less than half a second off a MK7 Golf Gti and bear in mind this was nearly 30 years ago.
Back in the late 80's maybe very early 90's a work collegue had a Maestro Turbo, Now at the time people were still smoking about in Cortina's and Capri's the performance of this was on another level. I couldn't believe how quick it was when I was taken for a spin.
When people were getting excited about their XR3i's and their Golf Gti's here came along the Montego and Maestro with power but more importantly torque to match.
Of course nowhere near to good to drive as the Mk2 Golf Gti or the Pug 205 Gti but for straightline performance they were bloody quick and still are for a 30 year old car.
Just looking at the old Montego Turbo road test and it puts it into context that, below 100mph, it is as fast as a new GT86. Being only just over 1100kg helps.Of course this vid is cringworthy and the Montego takes some stick but 0-60 in 7.3 and I think if memory serves me correctly the Maestro Turbo cracked 0-60 in just under seven seconds, This is less than half a second off a MK7 Golf Gti and bear in mind this was nearly 30 years ago.
Back in the late 80's maybe very early 90's a work collegue had a Maestro Turbo, Now at the time people were still smoking about in Cortina's and Capri's the performance of this was on another level. I couldn't believe how quick it was when I was taken for a spin.
When people were getting excited about their XR3i's and their Golf Gti's here came along the Montego and Maestro with power but more importantly torque to match.
Of course nowhere near to good to drive as the Mk2 Golf Gti or the Pug 205 Gti but for straightline performance they were bloody quick and still are for a 30 year old car.
They also managed a timed 130.6 mph on the speed bowl, so probably a true 133/134 on a long enough straight ( and probably near 140 on the clock as it was reading 104 at a true 100 )
That film is brilliant!
“The image Austin-Rover has so carefully developed after the last few years”. Um, yeah.
“Straight up this hill, no problem at all”. So the fact that you can expect an Austin-Rover to make it up a hill is something to be celebrated?
The end part translates to “Please don’t bend the car as you rag the crap out of it while delivering it to the customer”.
Also, doesn’t London look good without the modern street clutter?
“The image Austin-Rover has so carefully developed after the last few years”. Um, yeah.
“Straight up this hill, no problem at all”. So the fact that you can expect an Austin-Rover to make it up a hill is something to be celebrated?
The end part translates to “Please don’t bend the car as you rag the crap out of it while delivering it to the customer”.
Also, doesn’t London look good without the modern street clutter?
I dont get it?
150bhp from a 2.0 Turbo was surely bad then, embarrassing now?
I get their flimsy nature meant they were fairly light but it's 4.6m long, the same as my E46, that's not a little car so must still be in excess of 1k kg's?
I wouldn't put this in the same league as a Cosworth or Cavalier GSi / Turbo 4x4
150bhp from a 2.0 Turbo was surely bad then, embarrassing now?
I get their flimsy nature meant they were fairly light but it's 4.6m long, the same as my E46, that's not a little car so must still be in excess of 1k kg's?
I wouldn't put this in the same league as a Cosworth or Cavalier GSi / Turbo 4x4
PHMatt said:
I dont get it?
150bhp from a 2.0 Turbo was surely bad then, embarrassing now?
I get their flimsy nature meant they were fairly light but it's 4.6m long, the same as my E46, that's not a little car so must still be in excess of 1k kg's?
I wouldn't put this in the same league as a Cosworth or Cavalier GSi / Turbo 4x4
The Cav was introduced in 89 F reg I beieve. Not sure if the Turbo was introduced at that time i think it was 92 onwards. The MGT was back in 84 so 8 years later.150bhp from a 2.0 Turbo was surely bad then, embarrassing now?
I get their flimsy nature meant they were fairly light but it's 4.6m long, the same as my E46, that's not a little car so must still be in excess of 1k kg's?
I wouldn't put this in the same league as a Cosworth or Cavalier GSi / Turbo 4x4
It weighed less than 1100kg and whilst its power to weight wasn't great it's torque to weight ration was pretty good and yes of course you couldn't compare to a Cossie which was looked at as a supercar back then.
CHIEF said:
PHMatt said:
I dont get it?
150bhp from a 2.0 Turbo was surely bad then, embarrassing now?
I get their flimsy nature meant they were fairly light but it's 4.6m long, the same as my E46, that's not a little car so must still be in excess of 1k kg's?
I wouldn't put this in the same league as a Cosworth or Cavalier GSi / Turbo 4x4
The Cav was introduced in 89 F reg I beieve. Not sure if the Turbo was introduced at that time i think it was 92 onwards. The MGT was back in 84 so 8 years later.150bhp from a 2.0 Turbo was surely bad then, embarrassing now?
I get their flimsy nature meant they were fairly light but it's 4.6m long, the same as my E46, that's not a little car so must still be in excess of 1k kg's?
I wouldn't put this in the same league as a Cosworth or Cavalier GSi / Turbo 4x4
It weighed less than 1100kg and whilst its power to weight wasn't great it's torque to weight ration was pretty good and yes of course you couldn't compare to a Cossie which was looked at as a supercar back then.
Sierra Cosworth, Cavalier Gsi and Turbo weren't around when these were launched
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff