eBay Find of the Week : MG Metro Turbo (and a rather pricey one at that)

Craig Cheetham

Here’s an indicator of how times change – and, hopefully, for the better…

Sound and solid, but is it really worth upwards of £2k? The answer, clearly, is yes...
Sound and solid, but is it really worth upwards of £2k? The answer, clearly, is yes…

Back in the day, this MG Metro Turbo would have been pretty worthless other than for its engine – we don’t need to go into detail here about Metros giving up their engines to Mini nuts, but the fact that, despite not having had an MoT in years, with a week to go and priced at £2,000 already, this uber-rare MG Metro Turbo appears to be finding its own value in the market is intriguing to see.

Don't show this to a Mini fan!
Don’t show this to a Mini modifier!

At least I hope so, as despite owning one myself, the last thing the world really needs is another modified Mini at the expense of an extremely rare Metro variant.

The fact that this example is already so highly priced shows that the values of Eighties cars, and of hot hatches in particular, are currently exploding (have you seen how much Golf GTis go for these days?), and also underscores the rarity of Metro Turbos. Who’d have thought it?

Interiors don't get much more Eighties than this...
Interiors don’t get much more Eighties than this…

This one looks like a pretty sound car (although it’s not a ‘barn find’, as a garage in London is not, in any way, shape or form, a barn), but it’s not completely devoid of work required to make it roadworthy and show-able.

Alloys could do with a refurb, and it needs a good clean, polish and detail...
Alloys could do with a refurb, there’s rust around the filler flap and it needs a good clean, polish and detail…

Is anyone else, like me, regretting not picking one of these up when you could have got one a few years ago as a £500 plaything?

The times, they’re a-changing. Eighties cars are massively ‘on the up’, and we’ll be doing a more in-depth feature on that subject over the coming weeks…

In the meantime, if you think this is worth more than a couple of grand and fancy a punt of your own, please do so here

Craig Cheetham

11 Comments

  1. Hasn’t moved for 3 years, seller advises “bring a trailer”… the price is utter madness! 6 days to go, so the bidding could go well beyond the current £2k.

    Still, in a world where nice 205 GTIs and Golf GTIs sell for well in excess of £10k, I guess anything is possible. Although the Metro turbo is not in the same league as those two in terms of modern classic desirability.

    • “You are quite right, the Metro is a lot nicer”
      Really? I had the pleasure of selling these and the Metro Gti when current. Not in the same league as the Golf or the 205.
      Nice car in its own right but lets not start going all Rose Tint on ourselves.

  2. Can’t say it would light my candle personally, but had a friend who owned one and loved it.

    To be fair, the people who remember them fondly from the 80s will probably be in their late 40s or even 50s now and can probably well afford a couple of grand plus some work to get it back on the road. Simple mechanicals, lots of parts available off the shelf and not much electrickery to deal with makes it a potentially useable classic for under £5k including a fair bit of restoration.

    It looks reasonably sound unless the underneath is a lot worse than the interior, and there is no obvious rust showing round the wheelarches.

    Why not, when ratty and hacked about mega-mileage Mk2 Golf GTIs are going for north of £10k?

  3. i owned one, mk.1 turbo years ago for a couple of months in 90 or so and drove him total loss on the day i was planning to change him for another car… a meastro 🙁 because engine was already total loss.. a shame

  4. I have a metro turbo same colour as this one, I paid £200 for it back in 2001,now after it’s rebuild it’s in as new or better than new condition, I like to think in a few years time it will be wroth a few quid as you rightly say they are very rare thanks mostly to rust and mini owners,i have to be honest when I take it out in the summer months I get a lot of nice comments about it which are good too hear.

  5. Just 2K? A guy featured in one of this month’s MG magazines rebuilt a Metro turbo and spent £20,000, yes 20K, and will obviously never sell it, nor have a hope of getting his money back. But the restorers amongst us don’t usually work like that fortunately. It’s done for the love, enjoyment and personal achievement. That’s how we enjoy having so many classics in the UK. I hope this Metro as featured is cherished, and used!

  6. Just 4 years after this eBay listing a couple of really nice Turbo’s are currently for sale at £8 and £13k respectively. With only a handful remaining you can expect £20k asking prices for the best cars very soon.
    Compared with a Cooper S that’s a bargain.

  7. FYI. EX EMPLOYEE. Body in white panels produced in Swindon then shipped to Longbridge.
    pre 1986 sheet steel grade CR1-4 GP or FF non coated. No BH or Rephos’ used.
    post june 1986 introduction of EZ Coated Cr1-4 to exterior paint finish panels and iz coated to underbody exterior body panels, in addition cost down exercise’s undertaken reduced material gauges on many parts ( not all) due to British Steel Steel gauge standardisation. I purchased a july 86 Turbo only to find it was an earlier shell with no EZ OR GALV, wings rusted through within 4 years. Traded it in for an MG Maestro with 22.5% employee discount. The worst metro panel on the vehicle to produce was the lower windscreen scuttle, AFP 0101 gave production problems for years. complex form and poor tooling process. Many of the smaller pressings were produced from the cut-outs from tailgates inner and outer at scrap cost for material gave huge savings over the life of the vehicle.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.