Quite a few actually. While the Mini us more commonplace now, you're more likely to see a Metro in the UK than a contemporary VW Polo (dreadful seats & hard suspension), or Renault Twingo (horrid plastic'y eco tub).
my mate - Malcolm Leggate - owns one that was featured in this very advert. He used to race minis and was approached by Leyland to race one of the then new Metros. He had just lost his Father at the time and took some persuading but when they told him he could keep the car he gave in. The car was designated as a press car but after prep was a full blown 1293cc monster. It still exists today in near immaculate condition but it never goes out much. It got fired up today for the first time in 2 years, it ran unbelievably well.
It was OK when it first came out, buit when the Fiat Uno, Vauxhall Nova and Peugeot 205 came out 3 years later, the Metro was seriously outclassed. The car was badly hampered by never having a diesel or five speed option and the 1 litre was very noisy. Yet the Austin Metro managed to sell a million in its ten year career and probably saved British Leyland from collapse in the early eighties.
One of the biggest problems with BMC/Leyland is that whenever they designed a decent car, it was produced for ages with minimal changes until it was hopelessly outdated.
The government never gave BL any money to them to invest in all new models to keep up and rivals just left them for dead but at least the likes of Ford did invest alot in Jaguar and BMW with the new Mini but still too late.
@Glenn1967ful It was actually the styling that killed the Maestro; the result of a muddled design process that'd changed stylist part way through. That, and there was almost no mechanical commonality with the Metro, a car it was supposed to compliment. Quite a few Maestro's around though, so build quality and reliability weren't that bad.
Even surviving Lada's that didn't get exported back to Russia are fetching good money now. Many people got more for them that way by scrapping them. Same with Estelle's and Rapid's. The cars we once laughed at keep us shocked about how much they go for
Your loss... as Datsuns are the worst rust boxes of all in UK winters... that's why none of the '70's & '80's Datsuns surrvive today... a bit like Alfa Sud's & Arna's 😂
@car4367 In the wider world sure, but to see a Datsun in the UK today is very rare. I'm in the Midlands and have seen innumerable Nissan vehicles over the years, besides a plethora of foreign and domestic cars (particularly Metro's, Novas, Chevettes, Renault 5's & other period '80's metal), but I've never seen first hand a Datsun, except one possible early Z car. For context; there's no shortage of rare cars to spot in my hometown, such as at least four Triumph Stags', three TR7's, random oldschool Lamborgini & Ferrari spottings, various Austin & Morris cars (mostly postwar with a fair number of prewar), and so much more... but Datsuns by contrast are rarer than period Alfa's & Polski FIAT's 🤔 . Not just Datsuns though: have never seen a FIAT Uno in everyday use, nor a standard Alfa Sud (one special version only), and the Alfa Romeo Arna IIRC is impossible to spot, as according to the DVLA there were less than 340 left in the UK back in 2000, let alone now 🤔 . (not that anyone will miss Alfa's worst car... which was in part because it was part Datsun Cherry... with Italian electrics & Alfa's period build quality & union troubles 😆)
@@jimtaylor294 true, the early japanese car is hard to come across here, but maybe that's what makes them interesting for me. there are a fair few left, not as many as the comparable european car, but they aren't impossible to come by.
@car4367 Fair enough. Just a heads up though; the Datsun 120Y is rare for good reason, as it had several design flaws that resulted in trapped water rusting the underbody panels & the suspension mounts, which was the common reason for them being scrapped. Not an issue unique to the car (various american cars are particularly vulnerable to the same issue), but combined with its Ford Anglia'esque brakes, I'd dread having to repair one.
A British car to beat the world? Understatement of the year and not true. Other superminis that came out, beat it in many areas, for build quality, reliability, rustproofing, driveability and value. Sorry Austin, but this is not one of your best efforts.
Not really. The contemporary Polo for instance had inferior suspension, the same dodgy electrics as the Golf (good luck fixing all the shorts / finding a new main board 😂), and rusted just as badly in UK winters / sea air. Austin's real issue was lack of money to update it faster, due to the Maestro being a confused design that flopped, rather than being the Golf's counterpart in the AR range 🤦♂️ .
Nah. Mk.1 Golf's have worse electrics, much harder suspension, uncomfortable seats on all but short journeys, rust just as badly and are far rarer to find without past crash damage, missing parts [very expensive] or shoddy modifications 😂 . Saying that as someone who's family experienced Golf's of MK.1 through MK.4... they're far from faultless cars, contrary to popular myth.
Mk11 Golf were mostly rust proofed , had gearbox trouble , I know Metro’s were bad, bad sellers 2nd hand, fuel leaks, quality control questionable, I took a customers Metro in immaculate condition 3 years old with less than about 12000 for a mot, I asked the checker why are you going over it so intense , even taping the underneath… Answer was. It’s a Metro.
@@carmanbazza Not saying Metro's didn't have issues (albeit often ones resulting of poor customer care for their cars / factors common to other cars of the period), rather that many give VW rather too much credit. Our family's MK.2 for instance proved a poor choice for long journeys (at least as far as not making passengers bent double or queasy), a bit like the MK.1 Polo; mainly due to the basic suspension. Probably why the MK.3 & 4 were more cushy and heavily built. (though the suspension was better than contemporary Ford's, got to credit VW there) The MK.3 we had though fell prey to body rust and engine trouble; ironically cost less to buy a new MK.4 than it would've to repair.
Body rust yes after 1990 they were poorly built, wings rotting etc after just a few years and comfort on the Mk1/2 wasn’t the greatest but easy enough to work on which I did 25 years ago an old boy now but hey.
This is the advert that's mentioned in Jonathan Coe's novel 'Bournville' - it's just as he describes it
I came here for the same reason. It's even more cringe worthy than his description in the book!
Brilliant Jonathan, as ever.
That's not saying much.
Coe's the dictionary definition of an out of touch, guardian reading, middle class snob with a punching down habit 🙄🥱 .
Here I am for exactly the same reason!
Just read the description in the book and had to see the ad, even more awful.
Love this advert, very optimistic
A very British Car ad 🇬🇧
Excellente voiture, sous estimée en France, et trop rare à trouver en ... 2022
They'd never get away with this ad nowadays.
Can’t have companies lying outright on TV advertisements anymore.
Patriotic advert, yet i love it.
I wonder how many of those metros are still on the road compared to the German and Japanese cars
Quite a few actually. While the Mini us more commonplace now, you're more likely to see a Metro in the UK than a contemporary VW Polo (dreadful seats & hard suspension), or Renault Twingo (horrid plastic'y eco tub).
my mate - Malcolm Leggate - owns one that was featured in this very advert. He used to race minis and was approached by Leyland to race one of the then new Metros. He had just lost his Father at the time and took some persuading but when they told him he could keep the car he gave in. The car was designated as a press car but after prep was a full blown 1293cc monster. It still exists today in near immaculate condition but it never goes out much. It got fired up today for the first time in 2 years, it ran unbelievably well.
You must be quizzling
It was OK when it first came out, buit when the Fiat Uno, Vauxhall Nova and Peugeot 205 came out 3 years later, the Metro was seriously outclassed. The car was badly hampered by never having a diesel or five speed option and the 1 litre was very noisy. Yet the Austin Metro managed to sell a million in its ten year career and probably saved British Leyland from collapse in the early eighties.
One of the biggest problems with BMC/Leyland is that whenever they designed a decent car, it was produced for ages with minimal changes until it was hopelessly outdated.
The government never gave BL any money to them to invest in all new models to keep up and rivals just left them for dead but at least the likes of Ford did invest alot in Jaguar and BMW with the new Mini but still too late.
@@jaggass The problem was cars like the Maestro were badly made and unreliable and buyers stayed away.
My dad had a Maestro for 3 weeks and he didn't like it because it was riddled with problems so he got a Ford Orion instead which was so much better
@Glenn1967ful It was actually the styling that killed the Maestro; the result of a muddled design process that'd changed stylist part way through. That, and there was almost no mechanical commonality with the Metro, a car it was supposed to compliment.
Quite a few Maestro's around though, so build quality and reliability weren't that bad.
Martin is right.. It's a bit too much. Sorry Jack!
Sarah Jane Smith’s car!
A dear friend used to be a proud owner. Never could imagine why myself though.
Nice
They were rustprone.
...as was every Datsun, Alfa, Lancia & more 😂
"A British car ... to beat the world."
Funny, I thought Morris Mini was that.... or the Range Rover.... or the Jaguar.....
Oh, never mind.
The Metro was never a great seller outside the UK
Sold well in the UK though; over 2,000,000 in all.
(not many car models have managed that in the UK market)
And now surviving ones are going for good money.
@@jaggass True. Same for most cars of the same era though, apart from the few surrviving clunkers, like Wawsaw Pact era Skodas 😅
Even surviving Lada's that didn't get exported back to Russia are fetching good money now. Many people got more for them that way by scrapping them. Same with Estelle's and Rapid's. The cars we once laughed at keep us shocked about how much they go for
I’d rather buy a Datsun Pulsar that any of those metros.
Your loss... as Datsuns are the worst rust boxes of all in UK winters... that's why none of the '70's & '80's Datsuns surrvive today... a bit like Alfa Sud's & Arna's 😂
@@jimtaylor294 very true, but there's many of them yet!
@car4367 In the wider world sure, but to see a Datsun in the UK today is very rare. I'm in the Midlands and have seen innumerable Nissan vehicles over the years, besides a plethora of foreign and domestic cars (particularly Metro's, Novas, Chevettes, Renault 5's & other period '80's metal), but I've never seen first hand a Datsun, except one possible early Z car.
For context; there's no shortage of rare cars to spot in my hometown, such as at least four Triumph Stags', three TR7's, random oldschool Lamborgini & Ferrari spottings, various Austin & Morris cars (mostly postwar with a fair number of prewar), and so much more... but Datsuns by contrast are rarer than period Alfa's & Polski FIAT's 🤔 .
Not just Datsuns though: have never seen a FIAT Uno in everyday use, nor a standard Alfa Sud (one special version only), and the Alfa Romeo Arna IIRC is impossible to spot, as according to the DVLA there were less than 340 left in the UK back in 2000, let alone now 🤔 .
(not that anyone will miss Alfa's worst car... which was in part because it was part Datsun Cherry... with Italian electrics & Alfa's period build quality & union troubles 😆)
@@jimtaylor294 true, the early japanese car is hard to come across here, but maybe that's what makes them interesting for me.
there are a fair few left, not as many as the comparable european car, but they aren't impossible to come by.
@car4367 Fair enough.
Just a heads up though; the Datsun 120Y is rare for good reason, as it had several design flaws that resulted in trapped water rusting the underbody panels & the suspension mounts, which was the common reason for them being scrapped.
Not an issue unique to the car (various american cars are particularly vulnerable to the same issue), but combined with its Ford Anglia'esque brakes, I'd dread having to repair one.
If the Daily Express made car adverts in 1980......
Nice spot
The car... not so nice
It could not beat an egg i think in all honesty there.
Antik car cunvrut electric motor car natural environment help & friendly
*Engrish 100* 😂
A British car to beat the world? Understatement of the year and not true. Other superminis that came out, beat it in many areas, for build quality, reliability, rustproofing, driveability and value. Sorry Austin, but this is not one of your best efforts.
Not really. The contemporary Polo for instance had inferior suspension, the same dodgy electrics as the Golf (good luck fixing all the shorts / finding a new main board 😂), and rusted just as badly in UK winters / sea air.
Austin's real issue was lack of money to update it faster, due to the Maestro being a confused design that flopped, rather than being the Golf's counterpart in the AR range 🤦♂️ .
Stiff upper lip, Metro bad cars, I’d have a Mk1 Golf.
Nah. Mk.1 Golf's have worse electrics, much harder suspension, uncomfortable seats on all but short journeys, rust just as badly and are far rarer to find without past crash damage, missing parts [very expensive] or shoddy modifications 😂 .
Saying that as someone who's family experienced Golf's of MK.1 through MK.4... they're far from faultless cars, contrary to popular myth.
Mk11 Golf were mostly rust proofed , had gearbox trouble , I know Metro’s were bad, bad sellers 2nd hand, fuel leaks, quality control questionable, I took a customers Metro in immaculate condition 3 years old with less than about 12000 for a mot, I asked the checker why are you going over it so intense , even taping the underneath… Answer was. It’s a Metro.
@@carmanbazza Not saying Metro's didn't have issues (albeit often ones resulting of poor customer care for their cars / factors common to other cars of the period), rather that many give VW rather too much credit.
Our family's MK.2 for instance proved a poor choice for long journeys (at least as far as not making passengers bent double or queasy), a bit like the MK.1 Polo; mainly due to the basic suspension. Probably why the MK.3 & 4 were more cushy and heavily built.
(though the suspension was better than contemporary Ford's, got to credit VW there)
The MK.3 we had though fell prey to body rust and engine trouble; ironically cost less to buy a new MK.4 than it would've to repair.
Body rust yes after 1990 they were poorly built, wings rotting etc after just a few years and comfort on the Mk1/2 wasn’t the greatest but easy enough to work on which I did 25 years ago an old boy now but hey.
What a POC that was.