RE: MG Montego Turbo: Time For Tea?

[otolith]

PHMatt said:

I dont get it?
150bhp from a 2.0 Turbo was surely bad then, embarrassing now?

Two litre turbos in the 80's;

http://www.carfolio.com/search/results/?s=y&o=...

[J4CKO]

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

No, 150 bhp was big power then, cars generally didnt have much more than 100 bhp in most cases, a normal Sierra had a 1.6 engine with 73 bhp, the Cosworth came a couple of years later with 204 bhp but it was a lot more expensive and was a homoglation special, the top Sierra in 1985 was the XR4i with about 150 bhp as well.

Supercars were much less powerful, a Testarossa had 390 bhp, a Countach which was the most barking, fastest bedroom wall adornment of the time had 450 bhp, which nowadays is not that big of a deal.

Everything does this, its called progress, tvs got bigger, mobile phones got smaller and engine power increased markedly.

Out little sub supermini Citroen C1 has 68 bhp, it is only 5 bhp down on a full size family car from
back then.

So, the Montego was a big deal really as we werent overburdened with cars with much more power, plus its still fairly quick now, 0-60 in 7.3 and 0-100 in 20 sec is not that shabby, even now.

[L1OFF]

I had a 1987 MG Montego 2.0EFi in White, red Detailing and grey seats. Reg E691 KCR (I think). Have fond memories of it despite the following in the first 6 monthes I owned her (it was 6 monthes old when I bought it for £7K)

Seat "MG" and stripe wore off, both seats replaced.
Windscreen wipers detaching themselves on the M27 (the splines were made of cheese)
drivers door mirror glass fell out
drivers window dropped into door (they dealers used to araldite them in as a common fault)
Front number plate and rear were different numbers
Front tyres worn out in 9K miles

[lufbramatt]

GilesGuthrie said:

Closest I got to one of these was my parents cross-testing it against a VW Passat.

They bought the Passat. Something like this:

My dad had a 1989 Montego 1.6LX back in the day, got stolen and subsequently written off by the insurance co over the cost of a new ignition barrel about 9 years ago. He replaced it with a £450 mk3 Passat (not a mk2 like in your pic) which was only one year younger than the montego but massively better built, albeit not as well specced. The 'tego was, to be honest, rotten, and had only done a smidge over 100k miles but had issues with the weird electronically controlled carb, the Passat had done 150k but the body was spotless underneath, and did much better MPG from its fuel injected 1.8l engine.

Dad reckoned they were pretty similar to drive, but the Passat despite being slightly heavier was easier to handle due to having power steering as standard. Montego's only had PAS as an expensive option. Montego was comfier to sit in though!

I also ended up with a B3 Passat, which is now 24 years old and the shell has done 280000 miles, but no issues with rust apart from a couple of small patches on the sills. The montego, if it had of survived, would be being swept up of a garage floor by now.

[campaj1]

oobster said:

DVLA shows C555 NRB as due road tax renewal on 01-03-1993 so it looks like it is no more.

it lasted under a decade :S

[leedsutd1]

J4CKO, I could not put it better, I had 4,Xr3i"s in the late 80"s and 90"s they only had 108bhp
but were deemed a sports car !!

J4CKO 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

No, 150 bhp was big power then, cars generally didnt have much more than 100 bhp in most cases, a normal Sierra had a 1.6 engine with 73 bhp, the Cosworth came a couple of years later with 204 bhp but it was a lot more expensive and was a homoglation special, the top Sierra in 1985 was the XR4i with about 150 bhp as well.

Supercars were much less powerful, a Testarossa had 390 bhp, a Countach which was the most barking, fastest bedroom wall adornment of the time had 450 bhp, which nowadays is not that big of a deal.

Everything does this, its called progress, tvs got bigger, mobile phones got smaller and engine power increased markedly.

Out little sub supermini Citroen C1 has 68 bhp, it is only 5 bhp down on a full size family car from
back then.

So, the Montego was a big deal really as we werent overburdened with cars with much more power, plus its still fairly quick now, 0-60 in 7.3 and 0-100 in 20 sec is not that shabby, even now.

[andymadmak]

PHMatt said:

I dont get it?
150bhp from a 2.0 Turbo was surely bad then, embarrassing now?

Nope. That was pretty competitive in its day. Torque was good too.

PHMatt said:

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?

They were not THAT flimsy. Certainly just as tough as the FIATs, Fords, Vauxhalls and the rest that they were up against. Peugeots felt flimsier and don't even think about Citroens of the same era!
They weighed in at around 1100kgs, so whilst not heavy, they were not that light either. They felt solid enough.

PHMatt said:

I wouldn't put this in the same league as a Cosworth or Cavalier GSi / Turbo 4x4

Neither would MG have done at that time. . And that is the point. The MG was a LOT cheaper than the Cossie and the Cav 4x4 Turbo - plus those cars came a little later than the MG.

Mind you, if you tried doing a track day in your Cav 4 x 4 Turbo you could kiss goodbye to the centre diff inside a few laps....... I speak from personal experience...

In their day, the M cars were actually rather well thought of. No maker exactly covered themselves with glory back then in terms of uber reliability or corrosion resistance. (except perhaps Mercedes Benz) BMW still had a rust problem, and anything Italian practically dissolved before your very eyes!


I would say that the cars of that era were quite good fun to drive, in that you could enjoy them without ending up going at super silly speeds. My MG Maestro Turbo in particular was an absolute hoot to punt along and easily had the legs of some far more exotic equipment back then. Golf GTi 16V? didn't even get close!

Edited by andymadmak on Wednesday 23 April 15:57

[andymadmak]

campaj1 said:

oobster said:

DVLA shows C555 NRB as due road tax renewal on 01-03-1993 so it looks like it is no more.

it lasted under a decade :S

Aye, but when I sold it in 1988 it had well over 100k miles on the clock even then! Even at average annual milage rates it would have had 160k + on it by 1993. Not bad for a family saloon type car back then.

[rohrl]

My father's driver kept blowing up the Montego turbodiesel army staff cars he was issued. From memory I think he did three engines in about eighteen months and was much much happier to eventually be given one of the first Mondeos instead.

[Chainguy]

rohrl said:

My father's driver kept blowing up the Montego turbodiesel army staff cars he was issued. From memory I think he did three engines in about eighteen months and was much much happier to eventually be given one of the first Mondeos instead.

Says more about the cars or the driver yathink?

[GC8]

Driver, as the Perkins engines were excellent!

I saw a very clean Maestro Turbo in the paddock at Oulton last September. I took a picture of it and my girlfriend thought that I was mental...

[rohrl]

Chainguy said:

rohrl said:

My father's driver kept blowing up the Montego turbodiesel army staff cars he was issued. From memory I think he did three engines in about eighteen months and was much much happier to eventually be given one of the first Mondeos instead.

Says more about the cars or the driver yathink?

A bit of both probably. The Mondeo could take the abuse that a heavy-footed Lance Corporal dished out while the Montego couldn’t. When they went bang they went in pretty spectacular style too, one of them ending up with a bonnet dented upwards from underneath.

[rallycross]

funny to see Steve Soper in that role - extolling the virtues of the mighty Montego (as an employee of Austin he would have had to do it).

[Kidders]

I miss these cars. Easily tunable and ridiculously fast, my Maestro Turbo was on par with 320bhp Cossies. Apart from killing gearboxes because of the torque, I never really had problems with it mechanically, just regular fine tweaking because of the carb set up. Old school, brutish, ugly to some (i loved the square lines and chunky bodykit) but remembered fondly by us, it's just a shame people realised too late, and now the majority of them have gone with little parts support to keep them going, which is why i parted company with mine.

[liner33]

rohrl said:

My father's driver kept blowing up the Montego turbodiesel army staff cars he was issued. From memory I think he did three engines in about eighteen months and was much much happier to eventually be given one of the first Mondeos instead.

As an ex forces driver myself , few cars could have coped with the abuse dished out but out of our fleet of Montego diesels i can only remember one engine failure , mine, I hit a breeze block thrown onto the M3 at night , ripped a hole in the sump, by the time the oil light came on the engine was toast . Hardly the cars fault

Trim used to fall off them the ones the forces got were rumoured to be ones with q/c issues or that had been damaged during production , we often got new ones with slightly different paint. The rumour was they cost the military about £4k each , pretty good deal

[Madkat]

I thought that was going to be the Russ Swift video. How disapointed was i.

Anyway that video had american predictable comedy levels of cringe. The only humour the yanks seem to know

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

I thought all Montegos died an untimely death by being driven into shops without opening the door? They were rather easy to steal iirc.

[michaelcolby83]

Great cars. I thought Montegos were a handsome shape, I always liked the name too.
Montego Turbos (and Maestro Turbos) were very fast cars in their day.
I knew a few people who owned them and they all say they were reliable, comfortable, economical and fast.

Lovely SD1 parked up too.

I wish Britain still designed and built our own cars (and trains and ships, etc.), something our country could be happy and proud of, France, Germany, Italy, etc. manage it, there is no reason whatsoever we can't. What we need is a complete change of attitude and leadership in Britain, rebuild our industries back up with the latest state of the art machinery, etc. and start making our own things again.

[s m]

andymadmak said:

I would say that the cars of that era were quite good fun to drive, in that you could enjoy them without ending up going at super silly speeds. My MG Maestro Turbo in particular was an absolute hoot to punt along and easily had the legs of some far more exotic equipment back then. Golf GTi 16V? didn't even get close!

Here is an old Turbo road test - impressively quick off the mark!


..,

[Mave]

Always liked the MG maestro. Kind of old school while the world was going all sophisticated