1988 Mk1 AUSTIN METRO CITY.

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1988 Mk1 AUSTIN METRO CITY.
When was the last time you saw a Metro on the road ?.
They used to be common place on British roads in the 80's and 90's.
This Metro is being used as a daily and Peter has plans for the bodywork and many more modifications to complete this classic daily.
The Metro was produced by British Leyland (BL) and, later, the Rover Group from 1980 to 1998. It was launched in 1980 as the Austin mini Metro. It was intended to complement and eventually replace the Mini, and was developed under the codename LC8. The Metro was named by What Car? magazine as 'Car of The Year' in 1983 as an MG, and again as the Rover Metro in 1991.
During its 18-year lifespan, the Metro wore many names: Austin Metro, MG Metro and Rover Metro. It was rebadged as the Rover 100 series in December 1994. There were also van versions known as the Morris Metro and later, Metrovan.
At the time of its launch, the Metro was sold under the Austin brand. From 1982, MG versions became available. During 1987, the car lost the Austin name, and was sold simply as the Metro. From 1990 until its withdrawal in 1998, the Metro was sold only as a Rover.
Although the R3 generation Rover 200 (introduced in 1995 and smaller than previous 200 models) had originally been designed as a replacement for the Metro, it was not marketed as such after its launch. The Rover 100 finally ceased production in 1998, being outlived (by three years) by the original Mini that it was meant to replace. 2,078,218 Metros of all types were built.
Plans for a replacement for the Mini had been afoot within BL since the early 1970s, but none of the concepts conceived got beyond the initial design stages, largely due to a shortage of funds at British Leyland, and its eventual bankruptcy and government bail-out in 1975.

On 8 October 1980, BL introduced the Austin Mini Metro. The roots of the Metro lay in an earlier project denoted as ADO88 (Amalgamated Drawing Office, 88-inch wheelbase), which was intended to be a direct replacement for the Mini. However, poor reception to the ADO88 design at customer clinics and the increasing dominance of superminis in the ADO88's intended market segment, forced a major change in the project's focus. In late 1977, ADO88 was given an eleventh hour redesign, to make it both larger and less utilitarian in appearance and more upmarket in nature, becoming BL's first supermini, rather than an economy car. The revised project was given the new designator LC8 (Leyland Cars Number 8), and the definitive Metro design would ultimately emerge under the leadership of BL's chief stylists David Bache and Harris Mann. LC8 would replace the more upmarket, lower-volume Clubman versions of the Mini and the lower-spec, smaller-engined variants of the Austin Allegro (which would be fully replaced in the early 1980s by project LC10, which became Austin Maestro). The ADO88 project had experimented with new engines and suspension systems, but with limited time and budgets, LC8 would reuse much of the Mini's engineering (the A-Series engine with front-wheel drive via a sump-mounted four-speed transmission, and front and rear running gear carried in steel subframes separate from the unitary bodyshell) and borrow the Hydragas suspension system developed for the Allegro. However while much was shared with older BL models, LC8 would see these design elements heavily re-engineered and modernised. For instance the A-Series drivetrain was extensively updated with new materials and tooling to become the A-Plus while the new car would feature 12-inch wheels and all LC8s would have servo-assisted four-piston front disc brakes with fully split hydraulic systems, as opposed to the standard Mini which at the time still had 10-inch wheels and all-round drum brakes.
The hatchback body shell was one of the most spacious of its time and this was a significant factor in its popularity. The space efficient interior was also lauded for the novel 60/40 split rear seat which was standard on higher specification models. The original Mk.1 Metros also featured David Bache's signature "symmetric" dashboard design (also used on the Range Rover and the Rover SD1), where the main dashboard moulding consists of a shelf, onto which the instrument binnacle is simply mounted on the left or the right hand side – this arrangement saves the tooling cost of two separate dashboard mouldings for right and left-hand drive. Initially, the Metro was sold as a three-door hatchback only (as were most of its competitors), with a choice of 998cc (1.0 litre) or 1275cc (1.3-litre) petrol engines.
The name was chosen through a ballot of BL employees. They were offered a choice of three names, Match, Maestro or Metro. Once the result was announced, the manufacturer of trains and buses, Metro Cammell, objected to the use of the Metro name by BL. The issue was resolved by BL promising to advertise the car only as the "Mini Metro", although after a while the Mini Metro name disappeared.