29k one owner Metro 1.3 GS 5 Door

[JPB]

Ah. Sorry. I had a surgical procedure recently to implant a sense of humour but my writing finger seems to have rejected it.

However, it appears that everyone's a winner here, because of this:


Bumhats! that only has two wretched doors.

[bnicho]

Alright all you smart arses!

I typed 4 door, I meant five.

Metros were never sold in Australia at all, so any Metro is a curiousity here.

[TerryG]

I'm amazed there are any left at all. The mini boys seem to have had them all for their engines (I'm as guilty as the rest of them).
One with such low miles and in such good condition must be worth keeping to somebody, espicially at that money!

[JPB]

Yeah, values - of the miniMETRO/Metro and even the K-series engined Rover-branded one with front-rear interconnected displacers that replaced it - are definitely on the rise.

The one that's the topic of this thread is probably one of the best to go for; late enough to have the best seats, valve seat inserts for unleaded so no pouring additive through it, good colour and no whopping great holes visible in it. Best bit of the lot: It isn't a BMW Mini.
I'm surprised that it hasn't gone already.

[MG Mal]

JPB Wrote:

Yeah, values - of the miniMETRO/Metro and even the K-series engined Rover-branded one with front-rear interconnected displacers that replaced it - are definitely on the rise.

The one that's the topic of this thread is probably one of the best to go for; late enough to have the best seats, valve seat inserts for unleaded so no pouring additive through it, good colour and no whopping great holes visible in it. Best bit of the lot: It isn't a BMW Mini.
I'm surprised that it hasn't gone already.

Thanks for all the positive feed back regarding the Metro.

I agree the post 87 cars are by far the best to buy regarding comfort and unleaded from the factory.

But the earlier cars (80-84) have a certain charm to them, and seem to suffer less in the rot depratment unless really trashed.

I have 3 interested in the car, at very close to the asking price, all of which are Austin Rover / BL/BMC enthusiast's, so it will deffinately be going to a good home.

If I come across an Auto in Lipari Blue I will let you know.

Mind you, if I didn't allready have far too many cars, I would keep this one LOL.

Mal.

[JPB]

the earlier cars (80-84) have a certain charm to them, and seem to suffer less in the rot depratment unless really trashed.

Yes, with the benefit of time since production ceased, this is certainly how it looks now, but back in the '80s, when I was still with Subaru, one of the dealerships used to see a lot of BMC/BL/Austin-Rover stuff as that was the franchise prior to the International Motors brands being taken on.
We had an early car, on a 1981 X-plate, that needed new footwells, wings, front valance and various patches before it had reached 7 years of age. Ordinarily, repairing wouldn't have been viable but we still had a large stores department dedicated to the BL stuff, so muggins here volunteered to go into work on Sundays and, in exchange for the gaffer letting me use the workshop for my own project cars, I did the required welding to the miniMETRO.
At that time, the later models that were still practically new came with fitted liners in the front wings so we used to offer fitment of these to any customers who came in with earlier cars whose wings hadn't yet started to rust through. Takeup was high, in one week alone we sold and fitted the liners to the owners of eight cars!

Another good little earner that we had going which involved the Metros was LHD-RHD conversion.
This involved a contact of the proprietor bringing cars from the kinder climates of Southern Europe into the workshop, where we'd do the conversion which was almost as straighforward on Metros as it was on minis. The converted cars would always sell themselves since no other trader in the area had such utterly unmarked Metros in their stock, all such converted cars were fitted with the arch liners as a matter of course, I know of three cars that are still around today, one a local show car, one in a lockup with deflated suspension and flat paint but otherwise fine and the third surfaced only last April and is being used to reshell a very rotten MG Metro.
So at the time, the late cars were too new to be showing signs of rot and the only rust we would deal with then would be in those early cars. Now, of course, it's possible to observe that, as you suggest, more of the survivors are indeed early examples.
I love the things and will have another some day.

[MG Mal]

I currently have 3 Metro's In my personal fleet apart from this one.

80 1.3S minimal if any rust and only surface.

85 B Very early Mk2 Metro Turbo ( has minor surface rust to gutter) 25k from new.

and Finally a 88 MG Metro which is in the middle of having major surgery to sills , inner front wings, and door step tops. having already had front and rear panels, headlmap panels and Cross member.

I dont think I could count on both hands and feet how many I have had, (theres just too many LOL).

But, even though I am in the middle of drastically reduceing the size of my fleet, I think there will always be room for "The Mighty Metro".

Mal.

[TerryG]

Bloomin 'ec, you are a Metro addict!
time for a username change to Metro Mal?

[MG Mal]

Thats just three out of 23 cars Terry.

mal.

[MG Mal]

I'm happy to announce that the car has a prospective new owner.

And will be collected early next month.

A very good result to what could have been a sad conclusion to this metro's priveledged life.

Mal.