I always wanted to have a go in a Metro 6R4. I have owned a whole bunch of the smaller version. The original on which the bigger one is based. I know well the poky engine range. From the horrendous A-series versions (please refer to the upcoming mini article for more information, otherwise, Google it) to the much-maligned but sometimes-brilliant K-series. From the chirpy little 1.1 all the way up to the pugnacious little 1400. I am an old hand when it comes to flinging one deftly, I hope, from slippery bend to leave strewn curve with a wild and reckless abandon. Mere country lanes have trembled before the might of my rusty British metal but always, always have I yearned for a taste of the holiest of holies. The holy grail of automotive history. The Austin-Rover MG Metro 6R4.
Design development for the Metro 6R4 began after, in 1981, Competitions Chief at Austin-Rover, John Davenport, approached Williams GP engineering of Formula 1 fame to ask them to help design the new Group-B offering from British-Leyland. The old TR's had finally hung up their string-backed gloves, and though they had hardly covered themselves with glory, by the end they were pretty decent little machines with a good string of reasonable results to be proud of. With the imminent arrival of the Audi four-wheel-drive system however, there was a need for a sea-change in the cars that would now need to be built for rally if they were ever really going to compete and it was this initial spur that put Davenport on the lookout for new solutions in the first place.
Amazingly, this was not quite the Death-Knell for B.L.
There are any number of different histories and articles covering this, and It would be foolhardy to think there is much more to add to the already extraordinarily detailed and well covered topic of the history of the Metro rally car. Suffice to say that with extremely limited funding, some quite remarkable resourcefulness, and a frankly heroic amount of sheer brass, the VHPD (Very High Performance Derivative) was given the green light for development.
Originally intended to use the Rover V8 at the front, it was soon realised this was impractical and a re-design to incorporate a naturally aspirated, cut-and-shut Rover V8 engine (a double-pistonectomy amd some cylinder head sourcery resulting in the V64V 6-pot), with a mid-engine and permanent 4WD, the project was fast-tracked to fruition in only 6 months. What followed is now regarded as motoring legend. Neither developed quite enough or refined in time, the Metro's race winning pedigree was sadly not fully realised for Group B. Sometimes thought of as the giant-killer that actually didn't, it was only later, for instance on the Rallycross tracks of Great Britain, that these little ugly ducklings finally turned into swans. Undoubtedly a great car with definite championship-winning potential, it ended up being the Hero that wasn't. Rather like in Life, in Death the little plastic rocket only came to earn it's well deserved reputation a little too late to count.
Been there, seen that, Bought the poster.
There's a 'but' following though, isn't there? Okay, 'But', what makes a rally car, a rally car (if you see what I mean) is the very fact that it is, in fact, a car. Not just some wheels with a convenient place to control them but a full-blown car. The necessity to homologate a PRODUCTION vehicle means that in theory at least, for every forest-fireball that pollutes the pacific sounds of nature with it's snarling thunder, there are (again in theory) at least a few un-liveried 'stradale' versions gracing actual Tarmac. (In theory... wait. How many times can I get away with saying 'in theory' and still be taken seriously?) Somehow only rarely do people seem to be very excited about this.
To take the Metro 6R4 as an example, what you get when you buy yourself a 6R4 Clubman is just as unrecognisable to it's extremely humble origins as the out and out race car. Whilst the dash and window's frames may be shared, to look at there's virtually nothing else. Yet this car is just as much for the road as the miniature shopping car it hails from. You know the details; 6-pot V6, 3L, several hundred tiny, tiny horses crammed into the middle of the car. Comically exaggerated humps and haunches to enshroud the many inches of spring travel. Stone-age aero combined with impossibly small wheelbase. Everything you'd expect from the rally monster but without the Rothman's paint job. It's clear this thing is from the future 30-odd years on.
Now, in truth the two versions of the little-M actually share more than you'd think in common. Their identically diminutive stature for instance. Though a little larger in the track and wheelbase, the Clubman shares it's fantastic visibility and general petiteness with the smaller car. This is predictably great for everyday use. Your basic Metro and its Big Bro' alike can fit through the narrowest of gaps with ease, can maneuver in busy traffic without incident and have even got encouragingly small turning radii. The lack of power steering on the smaller car, and the fact that on the (slightly) larger one, the power steering is connected to the front diff, makes both cars a little cumbersome at low speeds. Both have chunky little gearboxes which only require use of clutch when pulling away, if so desired. Both can be coaxed into tail-happy slitheryness. Both have torquey engines....Okay, running out a bit here. The point is that the similarities run deeper than you'd expect. Rather like buying an Escort because Jimmy Mcrae had one, buy a lil' Metro and you really do get just a taste of what they bigger boys are like.
Not available with leather trim.
What makes this car a Hero at all though is where the differences lie. The steering wheel and attendant dashboard are all absolutely in order as far as the shopping car goes. You might wonder that for the price they were charging they might have put a little more effort into it than that, but I'm aware of the financial woes of rovercorp -or whatever brand-name it was temporarily assigned to that week- were pretty terminal even back then so maybe it's best not to judge. Everything above this point would seem to be pretty much standard too, not that there's all that much up there anyway when you come to think about it. The point where shit gets real, so to speak, is all below the belt. The pedals and carpet-free floor, the race-derived bucket seats. Where the back seats should be, the back seats most emphatically are not. All those relays and fuses. The passenger footrest. That lovely, exposed gear stick mechanism.
Its hard to do justice to how magnificent this car feels to sit in. That perverse mix of the familiar and the abnormal, coupled to an engine tone that is unmatched in the history of motoring. At idle it sounds like someone tearing corduroy, like it's constantly failing to stall despite reasonable effort. Then when the noise button is depressed, well, noise happens, and lots, and lots of speed. It takes off so fast you can actually feel the seat lurch forwards momentarily before you start moving. The ludicrous change in velocity leaves you hanging cartoonishly in the air for the merest fraction of a second before that rapidly accelerating seat scoops you into the bloody future.
Let's not lower the tone
Now it's pointless to pretend that you're going to get that sort of behaviour from your basic 1.1 lowly-spec Metro. Though equally equipped compared to the Clubman, no really, and even though the interior fit and trim are comparable, no, no, I mean it just listen...the point is that is that it's performance envelope when it comes to acceleration is not really going to set the world on fire. The GTa and GTi models, were supplied with progressively more intricate and subtle engine modifications respectively, to aid reliability and power, squeezing things a little. The torque delivery is unmatched by any of its coevals at least, but they're just not all that blessed with top speed or acceleration when all's said and done.
Where things start to tally, and the similarities come alive, is when your fingers grasp the wheel and tilt the little sleds into a tight one. Never has a chassis been more flickable. Whether you are in the Big brother or the Little brother, you can tilt around any corner simply by relying on the centre of gravity of the engine. in the 6R4 the weight is behind you and causes the back to jump out a little suddenly before you catch it with the oppo' and then plant it. The awesome torque drags the car through anything it can wade through. Now the original can perform the same trick, all be it in a slightly different way. The bouncy back end and the heavy front mean you can pitch the back at a variety of fascinating angles then also simply floor it. Even in the petite little 1.1 results in the tiny weight being coerced out of and over any corner or surface. One can imagine, when seated in a suitably glamorous GTi, with those natty red seat-belts, that you really are in a Clubman 6R4. This may sound like the dreams of a madman but I suppose people with Escorts, Subarus, minis and even Saabs feel the same thing when they go for a spirited drive.
That's more like it.
Now as it goes, I actually got a little taste of my dream. On a cold day in march, in a large empty car park. Myself and a few other select people were all given the chance to play in a variety of toys, if only for a minute or two. Amongst those toys was, indeed, a Clubman 6R4. For about 5 minutes. maybe less, mere glorious seconds in an eternity of 6R4-free existence, with my brain dialled all the way up to eleven, and my feet pre-prepared for left foot madness, I harnessed myself into the contraption, and prepared for catapulsion.
There are a million ways to say what happened next. But alarmingly few of them have never been said before, often in better prose by far more intelligent men. It's obviously, shockingly quick. But not just shockingly used as an amplifier, shockingly as in; beyond mere surprise. It's like your instincts have justs stoppd dead and quietly mumbled "Oh dear..." and everything else has momentarily shut down. It's not frightening because there's not really any time, but you do have just enough time to think "Bloody He...."Then a corner comes and goes...Bang. There's a robust and mechanical feel. Solidity in spades. The drop-off from the steering-pump is sudden at low speeds although I understand that an electric pump solves this problem easily. Brakes I assume work when warmed up but mine were not really. They squeaked like truly British brakes should though. Excellent. A lap or two later and with precious little to remember I am standing next to the car as another chap climbs in. A few seconds later see me jumping into something else exotic and expensive beyond my wildest expectations. No time. No time.
Onwards, to the past.
If there's one thing I can't stand, It's a story without a proper ending, so it brings me no joy to have to tell you that I intend to do that very same thing to you now. Plans are afoot. Decisions must be made. I have man maths to contend with and finances to wrangle but I think the time is ripe for another friendly little Rover to grace my driveway. With a couple of convertibles and a snorting saloon out back at the moment (that Nissan Note belongs to a friend, honestly.) It seems a shame not to have my favourite of all the tiny hatches once again. I know that when I get into it I will be transported back to those legendary minutes of yore when I too, was the master at the helm of the mighty Metro 6R4. I had the tiniest of tastes, but I never had the chance to drive it on the sort of road I prefer, which is coincidentally the same type of road the damn thing was built for, and I suppose I never will. But hope never dies, and If I don't have a dream, I can't have a dream come true.
In the meantime, I'll just have to make do...
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