Princess Diana's Austin Metro

Back in 1981, this was probably one of the most photographed cars in the world by the paparazzi. It was owned by the then Lady Diana Spencer and the press followed her wherever she went in the lead-up to her wedding to Prince Charles.
Although I never knew or met Diana, I've always had a great respect for her. Seeing the car recently at the Coventry Transport Museum made me think of the similarities that the Duchess of Cambridge faced before marrying Wills.
Prince Charles visited the manufacturing plant at Longbridge in Birmingham when the car was being reviewed at it's launch in 1980. I'm not sure if it's because he liked the Metro or if he was just being patriotic, but he decided to give one to Diana as a present.
The Metro was intended to replace the Mini but ironically the Mini outlived it - the Metro, (or Rover 100 as it was then known) ceased production in 1997 whilst the Mini came to the end of the line in 2000. Looking at the car now shows you how much bigger and more complex superminis are nowadays, as well as how dated the Metro has become...
Despite its very long life, the Metro sold well, even towards the end despite being one of the most dated designs on sale at the time. Altogether, 1,500,000 vehicles were sold in the United Kingdom making it the seventh most popular car ever to be sold in the country during its 17 year lifespan.
Durability was not its strong point though as the Metro was one of the most scrapped cars in the middle of the last decade. The DVLA back in 2006 had 21,468 Metros still on the road, just 1.5% of those originally registered.
'A British Car to Beat the World' was the slogan used on the launch advertising campaign. Despite the relative success of the car and one mad 6R4 rally bred Metro, one thinks this was a bit optimistic.
Share your memories/thoughts...

Peugeot 309 Remembered

Since purchasing the British Rootes Group from Chrysler in 1978, Peugeot took on Talbot, a British marque that was dwindling from one year to the next. Mainly this was due to a range that had as much appeal and styling pizazz as a prison cell. Look back at pictures of their last models such as the Samba, Horizon, Solara and Tagora and you can see why the Talbot brand was losing buyers.

Peugeot had started work on designing a new family car to replace the Horizon that was due to be christened the Talbot Arizona; however, in 1985 Peugeot decided to drop Talbot and the last passenger cars rolled off the production line in 1986. This resulted in the car becoming a Peugeot instead - the 309.
The resultant design of the 309 appeared more Talbot than Peugeot. In fact Peugeot wanted to separate and distinguish the car from their range by naming it 309 rather than 306, (a replacement for the then current 305 family saloon).

The 309 was manufactured in Ryton, Coventry - the first Peugeot to do so. This was followed up by the 405, 306 and 206. Launched in 1985, the 309 soldiered on until 1993 when the 306 replacement arrived. Peugeot then shifted the tooling to India where it was produced from 1994 until 1997.

 

Some of the engines used in the 309 were derived from the ailing Simca marque, a French based car company also owned by Peugeot. One engine that transformed the ultra conservative 309 into something altogether more interesting and crucially entertaining was the fuel injected 1905cc petrol powerplant used in the GTI. This hot hatch received good reviews although naturally fell into the shadows next to its little brother the 205, still regarded as one of the best hot hatches ever produced.