I was lucky enough (or unlucky - depending on your view of metros!) to purchase an all white Mk2 mg metro turbo recently, one of these, particularly in white has been on the list for a while but with so few about, particularly at the lower end of the budget / project fodder end of the market where I normally like to shop, I wasn't losing sleep over finding one, However this one came up at auction last month so it would have been rude not to have a little tickle wouldn't it? well curse word me I only went and placed the winning bid 
, was expecting them (yes plural, more on that in a sec) to go for a lot more than I paid. Transport arranged I headed down to the Somerset barn that they were stored in armed with various hammers, spare wheels etc to extract them from their slumber ready for my recovery guy to collect.
This was the barn / shed that greeted me on arrival
How they were stored, there had been a maestro and an xjs blocking them in originally but these were sold in the same sale and had been collected before my arrival
youtube video showing the metros and how they were stored (not my video)
The one I came for....
So yeah, the auction lot was for 3 metros, despite being better value for money I suspect this may have contributed towards them going for less than anticipated due to transport costs and not everyone having the space to store 3 cars, no matter how temporary. I reckon I could sell the white one alone for more than I paid for the 3....
Just quickly for those interested the other 2 cars I bought, one was the remains of an mg metro 1300, rolling but minus engine and seats among other things, terminally rotten, was quickly stripped of anything useful and weighed in, only picture I have of it
The other one was the blue C reg next to my white one, this is described in that youtube video as being a city with the turbo kit etc added on, and this is how the auctioneers described it, however a hpi check shows it to be a genuine turbo, albeit missing its engine and fallen victim to an enthusiastic max power / revs magazine reader back in the day with some questionable mods and non gen colour change (it should be black) This will be sold on to recoup some costs, or if not sold I may chuck it down the back of the unit and restore it at some point
Anyway, back to the white one, the story of extracting it from the barn is remarkably and annoyingly dull, brakes were free, swapped the 2 rear wheels for some that held air and it pushed straight out
Back at base
some digging shows it was last on the road over 20 years ago, partly the reason it still survives I suspect
Hartwell Dealer plates - Nice touch, I briefly worked for them 20 odd years ago!
The money shot 93bhp of pure gearbox shredding power
Amazingly despite standing 20 years and missing a couple of fairly vital pipes, with a fresh battery and a spray of easy start it not only turned over but actually tried to fire up, it did however shoot decomposed exhaust baffles across the workshop it will of course be getting a full refresh as a matter of course, I was just curious to see if it had seized
Interior is mostly there, sadly the mice have been at the passenger and rear seats
Showing 65k miles but (let me just put my metro anorak on for a sec..) it looks like the wrong instrument cluster, back ground and needles etc should be red in an mg, not yellow, that along with the wood trim on the dash makes me think its gained a complete dashboard out of a vanden plas model so I don't really know (or care really,,) how many miles it's done, judging on interior condition its not many
bodywork needs fully digging into once its stripped but we have rust in the roof gutters and around the sunroof so it may end up having a roof skin on it, other nasties are around rear windows, other than that I think it may be normal metro stuff, valances, floor corners, jacking points etc
more to come when I get started
, was expecting them (yes plural, more on that in a sec) to go for a lot more than I paid. Transport arranged I headed down to the Somerset barn that they were stored in armed with various hammers, spare wheels etc to extract them from their slumber ready for my recovery guy to collect.This was the barn / shed that greeted me on arrival
How they were stored, there had been a maestro and an xjs blocking them in originally but these were sold in the same sale and had been collected before my arrival
youtube video showing the metros and how they were stored (not my video)
The one I came for....
So yeah, the auction lot was for 3 metros, despite being better value for money I suspect this may have contributed towards them going for less than anticipated due to transport costs and not everyone having the space to store 3 cars, no matter how temporary. I reckon I could sell the white one alone for more than I paid for the 3....
Just quickly for those interested the other 2 cars I bought, one was the remains of an mg metro 1300, rolling but minus engine and seats among other things, terminally rotten, was quickly stripped of anything useful and weighed in, only picture I have of it
The other one was the blue C reg next to my white one, this is described in that youtube video as being a city with the turbo kit etc added on, and this is how the auctioneers described it, however a hpi check shows it to be a genuine turbo, albeit missing its engine and fallen victim to an enthusiastic max power / revs magazine reader back in the day with some questionable mods and non gen colour change (it should be black) This will be sold on to recoup some costs, or if not sold I may chuck it down the back of the unit and restore it at some point
Anyway, back to the white one, the story of extracting it from the barn is remarkably and annoyingly dull, brakes were free, swapped the 2 rear wheels for some that held air and it pushed straight out
Back at base
some digging shows it was last on the road over 20 years ago, partly the reason it still survives I suspect
Hartwell Dealer plates - Nice touch, I briefly worked for them 20 odd years ago!
The money shot
93bhp of pure gearbox shredding powerAmazingly despite standing 20 years and missing a couple of fairly vital pipes, with a fresh battery and a spray of easy start it not only turned over but actually tried to fire up, it did however shoot decomposed exhaust baffles across the workshop
it will of course be getting a full refresh as a matter of course, I was just curious to see if it had seizedInterior is mostly there, sadly the mice have been at the passenger and rear seats
Showing 65k miles but (let me just put my metro anorak on for a sec..) it looks like the wrong instrument cluster, back ground and needles etc should be red in an mg, not yellow, that along with the wood trim on the dash makes me think its gained a complete dashboard out of a vanden plas model so I don't really know (or care really,,) how many miles it's done, judging on interior condition its not many
bodywork needs fully digging into once its stripped but we have rust in the roof gutters and around the sunroof so it may end up having a roof skin on it, other nasties are around rear windows, other than that I think it may be normal metro stuff, valances, floor corners, jacking points etc
more to come when I get started
