RE: Shed Of The Week: Rover Metro
Discussion
I don't comment on here often, but today I must - mainly to offer some thanks....
I may be wrong but I believe those wheels are from the Metro GTa, which although not model specific they are still OEM and correct period.
vtecyo said:
I'd rather s
t in my hands and clap.
vtecyo, thank you for the fine mist of coffee which now covers my computer monitors.t in my hands and clap.Q Car said:
There's not enough glitter on the planet to roll that thing in....
Q car, thank you for exacerbating my initial 'LOL' to the point where my colleagues were concerned I was having a seizure.Motorrad said:
I also had my first shag in one.
Brilliant! There are probably many who can claim the same. Not my first but my early days of fornication were largely carried out in a 200 with the very same 1.4 K-series.I may be wrong but I believe those wheels are from the Metro GTa, which although not model specific they are still OEM and correct period.
I quite like Metros. They're fun to drive, have a bit of character and are cheap. Yeah you wouldn't want to crash one, but then I wouldn't want to crash any car.
I suspect PH is a bit too snobby for this to be SOTW, but it's a fun little car to pilot around. Just because a car is technically bad (they are, I make no arguments there) doesn't mean they're not fun. I had lots of fun thrashing a B-reg 1.0 Polo 4-speed around when I was 18 for a week or so. It was a pile of crap, but quite a lot of fun because it was so crap. I had a girlfriend who had one years ago, and I owned an AX GT at the time. The Metro wasn't as fun as the AX, but there wasn't the canyon between them you might think, and hers was a 1.1. The cambelt snapped on it too - stuck a new belt on, timed it up and it soldiered on!
Would I spunk £995 on it? No, that's quite a lot of money to me, added to the fact I bought a 106 Rallye a couple of days ago for less than that (granted it needs the head gasket doing) and that's more fun than the Metro. I suspect an AR lover might go for it, but it'd need to be down to the £500 region for me to consider paying for it as a daily, and that's an insult to the condition of it.
I suspect PH is a bit too snobby for this to be SOTW, but it's a fun little car to pilot around. Just because a car is technically bad (they are, I make no arguments there) doesn't mean they're not fun. I had lots of fun thrashing a B-reg 1.0 Polo 4-speed around when I was 18 for a week or so. It was a pile of crap, but quite a lot of fun because it was so crap. I had a girlfriend who had one years ago, and I owned an AX GT at the time. The Metro wasn't as fun as the AX, but there wasn't the canyon between them you might think, and hers was a 1.1. The cambelt snapped on it too - stuck a new belt on, timed it up and it soldiered on!
Would I spunk £995 on it? No, that's quite a lot of money to me, added to the fact I bought a 106 Rallye a couple of days ago for less than that (granted it needs the head gasket doing) and that's more fun than the Metro. I suspect an AR lover might go for it, but it'd need to be down to the £500 region for me to consider paying for it as a daily, and that's an insult to the condition of it.
, please stay back after work and write out 500 times 'Metros are hopeless, I must do better'.
KTF said:
FWDRacer said:
have the last laugh.
Until you hit something or something hits you.
Modern cars are much safer than old cars - but I do think PH overestimates them. You may not die in the accident, but how much of a compensation is that when the alternative is a life spent lolling in a chair with 24h care needs because of a severe head injury?
That said, I would want a more crash worthy car than the Metro for daily use.
I dont get the hate, they came out in 1982 ffs, that is almost 33 years ago, Rover group did drag it on way too long (but not as long as the Mini)
If this was a Mini, everyone would be all over it, but they were, by and large rubbish, if you had to drive one every day then the Metro was a better car but it isn't cute and cheeky like a Mini, not all Minis were restored, tuned wide arched Coopers, most were heap of dung 850's.
Mentioning the crashworthiness, as someone else said, they were all death traps back then, this caught the beginning of Euro NCap, a Polo, Fiesta or any other car of the era, in a significant accident meant you ended up inside out, go and Crash a Mk1 Golf and see how sturdy it is, even a Volvo 740 loses out (badly) to a 2005 Renault Modus.
I suspect if anyone actually drove this, they would probably actually forget themselves and quite enjoy it, the 1.4 K series does indeed provide these with plenty of Go, or at least it feels like it does.
I don't want one*, but it is, for better or worse, British, and part of our motoring history
If this was a Mini, everyone would be all over it, but they were, by and large rubbish, if you had to drive one every day then the Metro was a better car but it isn't cute and cheeky like a Mini, not all Minis were restored, tuned wide arched Coopers, most were heap of dung 850's.
Mentioning the crashworthiness, as someone else said, they were all death traps back then, this caught the beginning of Euro NCap, a Polo, Fiesta or any other car of the era, in a significant accident meant you ended up inside out, go and Crash a Mk1 Golf and see how sturdy it is, even a Volvo 740 loses out (badly) to a 2005 Renault Modus.
I suspect if anyone actually drove this, they would probably actually forget themselves and quite enjoy it, the 1.4 K series does indeed provide these with plenty of Go, or at least it feels like it does.
I don't want one*, but it is, for better or worse, British, and part of our motoring history
- actually still have my grandads one tucked away in a barn.
People always comment on the crash worthiness of these but in reality they where one of the oldest designs to be tested.
if you tested most small cars from the 70's/80's you would have the same result and people still want old basic cars.
Not defending the Metro but just stating a fact.
if you tested most small cars from the 70's/80's you would have the same result and people still want old basic cars.
Not defending the Metro but just stating a fact.
Firstly, you won't have any head gasket problems with the 8V K Series, it's a great engine and very strong.
Secondly, I cannot imagine a situation in which this dismal pile of st is the best car you can get for £1k. I have driven and owned a few when they were free/£50 and aside from the K-series engine being superb even in 1.1 form the car is hopeless. No power steering, inadequate brakes, bouncy ride, terrible rust and quality issues. It's also too st to even be considered ironically st. Perhaps a very early car with an A-Series for nostalgia/novelty value but the late ones were pointless and st when new and are even more so now other than to serve as a powerful reminded of the arrogance, hubris and incompetence that killed the British motor industry.
Also I have to respond to this:
Secondly, I cannot imagine a situation in which this dismal pile of s
t is the best car you can get for £1k. I have driven and owned a few when they were free/£50 and aside from the K-series engine being superb even in 1.1 form the car is hopeless. No power steering, inadequate brakes, bouncy ride, terrible rust and quality issues. It's also too st to even be considered ironically st. Perhaps a very early car with an A-Series for nostalgia/novelty value but the late ones were pointless and st when new and are even more so now other than to serve as a powerful reminded of the arrogance, hubris and incompetence that killed the British motor industry.Also I have to respond to this:
dbdb said:
The same thing would happen in any other small car from the Metro's time. The only cars of that era which can be considered anything like safe to modern eyes are very big cars at the Mercedes/XJ6 level.
This is doubtless true if you consider the Metros "time" to be 1980 when it was launched, however when they were still selling it in 1990 - 1997 it was almost certainly one of the least crash worthy cars money could by. Go on the NCAP website and look at the crash performance of it's contemporaries in the mid 90s. I'm not usually one to worry too much about crash performance, but you could have an accident in this that wouldn't even be "ouch my neck is stiff" territory in a real car and be mangled beyond recognition.Edited by dme123 on Friday 24th October 11:21
Having just posted on the Coventry motorsport proposal I was in Coventry as a student when every week another factory was closing down. I remember the near hysteria the day the Metro was announced and it was seen as the car that would save the town. And whether you like it or not to some degree it did.
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