PROTOTYPE
SIX APPEAL
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A rare prototype from the Issigonis‘ Small Car Future Projects’ department, this Metro is powered by a six-cylinder 1275 …
Ask someone to associate the combination of the words‘ Metro’ with‘ six-cylinder engine’ and the undoubted result would be the MG Metro 6R4 from the mid-Eighties, the mid-engined four-wheel drive Group B rally car, powered by the turbocharged 3.0-litre V6 dohc engine.
But we recently came across a very different combination, while perusing the numerous exhibits in the collection at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon. From a distance, parked partially obscured in the second row, it looked just like a fairly ordinary all-white 1986 MG Metro and wouldn’ t normally have warranted a special excursion across the display room.
But with the bonnet obviously left open for a reason it was worth a look, and then a second look when the length of the cam cover was noted,
and the number of spark plug leads were counted. Here was an inline sixcylinder engine, installed transversely, and �uite a good fit it was too.
It seems that, following his retirement in 1971 Sir Alex Issigonis continued to work for British Leyland as a consultant and this MG Metro is his last prototype. Fully road legal, with the registration D314 NOM, it was put on the road only eighteen months before his death and less than a year before his‘ Small Car Future Projects’ department was disbanded.
Although Issigonis commented‘ the layout is very untidy because I onl� had two fitters to do the job in rather a hurry’ in fact the installation is quite impressive. Usually an inline si�-c�linder would be too long to fit in a transverse installation in a small car, but in this case the gearbox was placed under the engine in classic
Issigonis style. The bulkhead has been modified to make space �or the air cleaner for the twin-carb installation but otherwise the car is fairly standard, to show how a 9X engine might work in a modern hatchback of the 1980s.
Clearly very different from the usual A-series, though, the six-cylinder unit – created from what was essentially one and a half of the 850 cc fours – gave the same 1275 cc capacity as the Metro’ s original A-series. Although it was rated at a modest 100 hp, it would undoubtedly have been very smooth and refined in operation. Subsequent enquiries with the museum archives and Metro enthusiast circles have revealed no more details, so we’ ll be very interested to hear if any of our readers have any further information about this conversion.