![]() Still, they were fun, cheap to run and their general stodginess meant you never encountered any challenges from souped-up Novas and Fiesta drivers. If both sides collapsed it looked like you had lowered suspension. Another quirk, and one which I could have done without, was the cosseting Hydragas suspension had a habit of sagging on one side, which made it look like you were permanently driving on a steep camber. His also had an E-gear as opposed to my more conventional 4th – a quirk of which I was inexplicably jealous. His was pensioner-beige with a poo-brown interior trim, which felt truer to the Metro brand. ![]() Actually, I could never firmly ascertain what colour it was, nor why the X was dropped from the name. I followed the City X with a plain old City in muted browny red. In the golden age of hot hatches, the Metro was wilfully uncool. Back then most cars were pretty slow, but with ancient A-series delivering a mighty 44bhp, the only vehicle my City X could comfortably outpace was a Fiat 126. My first Metro was a 1989 1.0 litre City X in refulgent blue. The Austin Metro: a cutaway reveals the brownest of interiors The Metro became one of the top selling cars of all time in the UK. It didn’t beat the world, but something about its undynamic form captured the hearts and minds of the British consumer. Amid the well-rehearsed narrative, it is easy to overlook the huge investment in robotics and automated manufacturing that made the Metro possible. Treacle slow in base model form, reliant on old technology – it was powered by an updated version of an engine you could find under the bonnet of a Morris Minor – and dull. By the time it finally arrived in 1980, a post-industrial malaise had settled across Britain, and, despite the launch date, it felt much a product of the 70s. The Mini was a nigh impossible act to follow – it was Carnaby Street, the swinging sixties, bank heists in Turin and the Monte Carlo Rally. The Metro, billed as a ‘British car to beat the world’ by some overenthusiastic ad-men at Leo Burnett, was the answer. In familiar leaden-footed style, the company had been slow to capitalise on the burgeoning small car market it had helped create with the Mini. Legendary stylist David Bache – the man behind the sinuous beauty of the Rover SD1 – was parachuted in at the eleventh hour to smooth off the edges, but even he could not transform the Metro into the design icon so badly needed. ![]() Predictably the results, at least in aesthetic terms, were less than thrilling. Consumer feedback on the concept had been overwhelming negative – too van-like, too utilitarian. The Metro was the product of a variety of directives from British Leyland’s management. The Austin Metro: A British car to beat the world? Car Design Dialogues North America 2022.
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