The Vindaloo of Metros - 1993 Rover Metro 1.8 VVC Sleeper

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It’s 25 years since I last drove a Metro, but I do remember how much I loved my MG Metro, it was enormous fun and it never let me down. And yes, who can forget those red seatbelts !

I had an 89 GTa in white and loved it very much! Not fast with the old A series engine but put a big grin on my face every time I drove it! 😁👍

Somebody sign up twin cam for top gear this young man has a great future in automotive media ! 🤓👍🏻

Am 50 years of age. So nice to see a youngster knowing his stuff. If only we could get you doing a real top gear like they did back on the day.

Love these. Had one as when I was 19. Really was a nippy thing. It’s been sat in a shed at my family’s house now for about 16 years. Should find the time to sort it out.

Even the 1.4mpi Metros were impossible for the Police to catch around our estate in their T5s. Incredible acceleration out of sharp turns.

I had forgotten how smart the facelifted Metro was, in both basic trim and sports trim :)

This video took me back to my "hot hatch" days (though it was a 2-door fastback coupé rather than a hatch). Here's a wee story about it. Pocket rocket – a story with a moral to it It’s a common story: young chap, in my case twenty-one (OK, this was 50 years ago), gets his first small, red, fast car – and writes it off. The car, a Mazda R100 Wankel rotary-engined pocket rocket, was far from my first, but it was the first I’d had that could do more than pull the skin off a cold custard. (Its immediate predecessor was a 1960 Morris Oxford estate.) Bodily and suspension-wise it was a Mazda 1200 coupé, with few concessions to the considerable power increase over the 1200’s pedestrian performance; it did, though, have front disc brakes. The R100 developed a hundred horsepower; the 1200 produced seventy-three. This little red rocket supposedly had a top speed of 112 mph (close to 180 km/h), and weighed only eight hundred and fifty kilograms. I’d had it for four weeks when, visiting a mate, Terry – who was still a year too young to get his licence – persuaded me to take him for a ‘burn’. He’d read all about the R100 in motor magazines but had never seen one, let alone ridden in one. He was hot to trot! As we sat in the car with the engine idling, Terry asked, “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!” – to which my response was: “As soon as you buckle up”. “Huh? Never worn a seatbelt before.” (They'd been only recently mandated in AU then.) “Well you’re going to wear one now, or else no ride.” Grumbling at my insistence on the seatbelt, Terry buckled up. We launched! The road we were headed down was five kilometres long, and dead straight; it was not, however, level. It climbed and descended hills like massive waves. As we crested the last hill in third gear, the tachometer needle showed 7,000 revs – a tad past the redline – and I changed up to fourth. I wasn’t watching the speedo, just the tach. I later calculated that the car had been travelling at 96 mph (155 km/h). Unfortunately, immediately over that final crest the road took a sharp righthand bend – about sixty degrees – that ended at a T-intersection with the main road. Shit! I knew not to use the brakes in such circumstances, so I changed back to third gear – but still lost control. The Mazda started to spin, and on each of the four circuits the passenger side scraped against the wall of the road cutting. On the fourth time round, the car launched off the other edge of the road, over a steep drop. We flew through the air with the greatest of ease! The car landed on its nose some thirty metres from the road, then rolled arse over tit three or four times until it came to a tree. The momentum was enough to ignore the tree’s order to halt, and we started to roll sideways. After three rolls the car came to a stop – upside down. The roof was so badly crushed that we had difficulty finding an exit point, but eventually crawled out through the remains of the large rear window. We started the climb back to the road, then I realised that the ignition was still on. “Better prevent a fire,” I thought, so I returned to the wreck and managed to find the ignition key. And that was when the music stopped! I’d installed an eight-track cartridge player, and when I lost control of the car the tape in the music machine was the soundtrack of 'Hair'; it was halfway through the song: ‘Masturbation can be fun … ’. Fire risk eliminated – or reduced – we resumed our climb back to the road. When we arrived at our earlier departure point there was a bus drawing to a halt. The driver alighted, ashen faced, and enquired if there was "anyone alive down there?", pointing at the wreck. “No,” was our answer. It took a few more questions and answers before the bus driver realised that we had been the occupants of that car. He had witnessed the drama as he drove toward it down the main road, and had difficulty believing anyone had survived. He asked his four passengers would they mind if he turned the bus around and took us back to my village. They were halfway through their forty-kilometre journey, but all agreed that we should be taken home, so we were. Once home, Terry went into shock. At the nearby hospital he was assessed as being mildly concussed, but otherwise unhurt; he would be kept under observation for a few hours. I next arranged for a tow-truck to retrieve the mangled Mazda and bring it back to my shed. The following day I assessed the damage. There wasn’t one panel of the car recognisable – it was all mangled red metal. The only identifiable parts were the four large, round taillights. Three nights later while on night shift at work, I collapsed without warning – from delayed shock. Next morning I was back to normal (or as normal as I get – LOL). * Postscript A few weeks after the Mazda smash, I heard noises coming from my shed where the wreck was stored. On peering out of my window, I observed one of the village hoons with his head under the forward-opening bonnet, which conveniently hid my approach. “That bastard’s filching bits,” I realised. I grabbed a small CO2 fire-extinguisher, then still legal, and sneaked up on the thief. He was bent over with his head deep in the engine bay; his shorts hung rather low, exposing his ‘letterbox’ cleavage. A blast of cold CO2 down that cleavage had remarkable results! The malefactor stood up rapidly, sounding like a crow, “Faaarrck!”. In the process he banged his head on the bonnet hard enough to almost knock himself out. He got a serious dose of the dizzies, fell over, picked himself up, dusted himself off, cursed me colourfully, and fled – empty handed. He even left behind the tools of his nefarious trade. That loser never bothered to visit me again. LOL NB: Names changed to protect the innocent and others.

i had a rover metro 1.1 93 plate i think it was as my first car 20 years ago. i purchased it off someone i worked with who made it look like a GTI rep from the outside. car only lasted 6 months due to issues, but was a lot of fun. i added a peco back box to it that sounded really nice and sporty. i am almost 39, but would happily own another metro for nostalgia purposes, but this time round i would probably get the GTI or GTA if i can find one.

Well done Ed!.. you never fail to impress with your videos.. always so well presented and easy to watch. I bet that little blue sleeper has left some embarrassed hot hatch owners at the lights :-) The VVC technology allows for such a flat torque curve that power delivery is always more than expected for the displacement. Congrats to the owner for a well-conceived and well-executed project. And congrats to you for finding it and sharing it with us - Thanks again.

Please please do a longer video of you driving this beauty. Back in the day I thought the Metro looked good, now days I think they look awesome.

I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that last of the 1.1s l reg on had the color coded bumpers, red seat belts and fuel injection. The earlier ones looked very run of the mill... Black seatbelts and carbs... Always wanted one of the last 1.1s in red as that was one of the first cars I fell in love with as a kid

Yet again another fantastic example of the much loved Metro totally agree the Poseidon Blue really shows her off at her best. Thanks for sharing your find all the best.

Excellent. This is a more up to date version of tuning which directly links back to the way the original Mini was handled. Take a basic car and stuff a bigger engine in it without doing daft things to the looks. Exactly my sort of car. Very cool.

Great vid, I’m a huge fan of the super-mini class. So much more fun to drive than bigger cars. Just watch out for pervs, that man was stroking Melvin’s tyres... 😱😂

When I was a young serviceman stationed in England, I had a E-reg, 1.0 Metro City. Mine was a maroon 2 door with a manual choke and no headrests. Even more base spec than your white one.

Back in the early 2000's a friend of mine built one into his metro gti, when it had a terminal melt down of its original engine, at the time I had a tomcat turbo and he'd leave me for dead. Great times, cheers for the reminder 👍

I liked it even before watching the video, you deserve it, I hope the channel grows a lot. Good job as always.

165 hp in such a tiny car is not a lot... it's terrifying.