Metro 6R4 - Clubman, original 3000 Miles

I have never been to a group b rally, even if they hadn't been banned I don't think I would be brave enough to go and watch one. The fact that they had to stop them because so many spectators were being killed and maimed kind of put me off a bit. The cars were absolutely crazy and a fine example of what can happen when you take the leash off engineers, give them a massive budget and forget to feed them sedatives. The stuff they came up with was simply other worldly - Audi came out with the Quattro short wheel base cars, Ford the RS200, Lancia the Delta S4, Peugeot the 205 T16 and some outfit called British Leyland came up with the 6R4. It was called the Metro 6R4 but in reality the number of mini Metro shopping car bits in it were very few indeed, Only the door skins and instrument panel and a few switches remained, everything else was conjured up by a group of mad men led by Patrick Head of Williams engineering. BL had looked at creating a car on their own but wisely concluded they needed some help so legend has it that one John Davenport was despatched to have a chat with Frank Williams, whose f1 racing team was riding high at the time.

Many discussions were had about the tech spec and what it should be based on, a v8 was discussed, they even thought about using the Maestro as a basis for their entry in to the sport. What they actually ended up with as an initial set up was a Rover v8 with 2 cylinders chopped off, a 2 valve per cylinder head and natural aspiration, a very peculiar choice given everybody else was going for massive turbos with even more massive turbo lag. The closest group b car in terms of layout was the Renault turbo 2 based on the Renault 5, which also had a rear engine, albeit 1400 turbo. The original incarnation of the 6R4's engine produced a healthy 250 BHP - healthy for a road car but laughable by group b standards. Indeed some people did laugh. Briefly.They stopped laughing when at it's first major public appearance at the 1984 York National rally when it took 8 fastest stages and was leading by over 3 minutes when an alternator fire curtailed activities and generally pissed on the BL firework. Even so and even with what was to be a temporary engine the car made everybody sit up and take notice. The first taste of success came in 1985 when Tony Pond piloted his steed to victory at the Skip Brown Gwynedd Rally.

What really spiced things up was the next iteration of the engine designated V64V, no longer a chopped down rover 3.5 lump but a new unit with quad cams, 4 valves per cylinder and 410 BHP in race trim. It was designed by ex Cosworth employee David Wood, somebody that clearly knew his onions.

They had to sell 200 of them to the public to homologate the car, a special production line was set up to achieve that goal and a special version for public  consumption was created - they called it the clubman. It had the same base engine as the race cars but was detuned to the original car's 250 BHP to make it more drivable and suitable for doing the shopping in, Malcolm's car is probably the finest and most original example of one of these very special cars.

Now, personally I wouldn't want to go anywhere near a shop in it - it's incredibly noisy, a bugger to drive and parts are not exactly common, any failure would be expensive. What a machine though - total lunacy. Malc's example has covered less than 3000 miles since new - everything is original and immaculate. It runs beautifully, albeit infrequently. It had an MoT until a couple of years back, it's last outing was a club meet at East Kirkby airfield nearly 3 years ago, Fiona gave it a good schooling, it performed flawlessly, as did Fiona. One of my favourite Fiona stories comes from that day, everybody had wanted a go in it and many people got that once in a lifetime chance. But it is a pig to drive, very hard on the body so when one young lady who had been waiting all day got to her turn Fiona had painful blisters on her hands.  She still did that one last ride though, maximum respect for carrying on the Leggate tradition of letting as many people enjoy the cars as possible.

The last time Malc took it out it went all the way to Denmark, the only 6r4 to ever set wheel on Danish soil. He and Paulo towed the car 1100 miles each way behind Malc's Audi, I think it's fair to say it made the Danish MG club's 50th anniversary party a better event than if it hadn't been there. 

We had it on the ramp a while back, we wanted to check out a minor oil leak and make sure everything looked hunky dorey - it did. The thing is absolutely spotless and totally original. Hopefully it will get out some time this year although it really needs a cam belt change before that can happen and that's an engine out job - Ric Wood quoted between 6 and 8 grand to do the job. Not doing it is unthinkable, trashing such a rare lump would be an act of vandalism and although the engine has so few miles on it the belt is at least 40 years old and cam belts weren't nearly as good then as they are now, assuming it is possible to get one. I took loads of photos and in typical Powell fashion, I now can't find them!! I will add them if I can track them down or do some more next time I can get proper access to the car.

This is the most valuable car in the collection, the last one I saw go through auction made just a tad under £350K - ouch! I won't tell you how much the astute Mr Leggate paid for it but let's just say he has done well on it, he has owned it for a good few years now. It might get it's cam belt, it might even get an MoT, I hope it does because then more people will get the chance to see it, hear it and even feel it. In the mean time, here's a quick vid of Malc firing the beast up.