My eighth car was a departure from Italian technology and a venture into the world of Turbocharging. The Turbo unfortunately came attached to an Austin Metro but thats neither here nor there, it was at the time the most powerful car I had ever owned with some 93 horsepower on tap. Fitted with the latest evolution af the 'hydragas' system and a rear anti-roll bar, little low profiles (165/60's) the car handled very well indeed and failed to exhibit any of the understeering traits of the previous 127's i'd owned prefering to oversteer slightly on the extreme limit due the inside rear wheel lifting. As I remember this car seemed seriously fast at the time but is rather pedestrian by todays standards at 9.3 seconds to 60. Another memory was the poor fuel economy if you really booted it everywhere about twenty miles per gallon was all you could expect and with a 6.6 gallon tank that meant planning most trips to include a filling station en-route.

This car was also the first one to break down on me... very late one night whilst watching the local 'Cotswold Charities Rally' at the back of Chipping Norton, I watched all the cars come through one stage and decided to move on to another stage, pulled out onto the main A44 and an almighty 'Bang' came from under the car, I stopped straight away and checked under the car, could see nothing wrong but guessed that heading home was a good idea, on getting back into the car all the gears appeared to have moved sideways about an inch at the gearstick, about half a mile down the road I found out that the gearbox was what was at fault and all drive was lost. Later the next day it was found that the mainshaft had sheared and tried to exit through the end of the gearbox. That cost £300 to put right, the cost of a new 'standard' gearbox yes thats right 'standard', it turns out that when the development of the Metro Turbo was going on Lotus had been given the job but half way through the money had been pulled so with the engine completed it was coupled to the normal Metro 'box and a box of tricks added that limited torque between 3000 and 5000 rpm by bleeding off boost ! nice eh?

It was also the first car I got caught speeding in.... 93 in a 60 limit, and I did'nt even get into 4th gear ! It turned out that really the guys that caught me were looking for someone who had been drink driving sadly I had'nt had one for two weeks at the time, they also commented that they had to pull me as I was starting to lose them in thier 2.8 (blueprinted) Granada Ghia ! it still did'nt stop them giving me three points though ! how nice.

This car was sold for cash to partially finance the deposit to puchase my house where I still live today.

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