This is a very rare find....17k miles only! This wonderful Metro is a small and economical car that could be your daily driver or part of your motoring collection!...it certainly would look great at a car show. Remarkably as of Q1 of 2023 just 14 Mini Metro L's remain licensed and therefore on the road....I very much doubt many of those 14 are MK1's from the early 1980's. So this really is a rare find! Remarkably the MK1 Metro is now over 40 years old and therefore qualifies as exempt for both road tax and MOT (making this a very cheap for to run!) - 50 MPG and car insurance of between £100-150 per year..... She is a genuine beauty and just had a full professional body polish too! - a truly wonderful little car! This is a very rare little car these days! - this is an ORIGINAL condition MK1 Metro and not a heavily restored car that has lost all the originality....this is the one to buy! - she comes with an epic information file/binder and the original 2 sets of keys. The 'Primula Yellow' bodywork is in beautiful order and the contrasting 'Paprika' woven interior trim colour (brown). The car is remarkably original and even has the original radio (not a cassette in the 'L' model!) The car has had a new set of tyres fitted and has been fully inspected and prepared for sale in our own classic car workshop. We offer a full UK delivery service - we can part exchange your existing classic or modern vehicleWe are based in Overton, Hampshire (RG25) just 10 minutes from the M3 at Basingstoke or the A303/A34 at Whitchurch - there is a railway station in the village just a short walk away. A little more about the Mini Metro..... Well more starters this little car remains one of the best selling selling cars of all time in the UK. It was designed as the replacement for the impossibly popular Mini....it was codenamed ADO88 (ADO meaning 'Austin drawing office). The Metro was born during a very difficult time for the British motor industry, the UK government had to step in to prevent certain bankruptcy and the 1970's oil crisis and industrial action also plagued the newly formed 'British Leyland Corporation'...the ADO88 was first made as a clay model in 1975 at the famous Longbridge plant and the go ahead was given to produce a small fuel efficient car that would help save the fortunes of the struggling BL brand. It was the first new car from BL in 5 years and was eagerly anticipated. The ADO88 wasn't a hit with the various focus groups that BL used and the prototype was considered to 'van like' and utilitarian. So a top designer was drafted in, David Bache was one of Rovers first 'car stylists' and had worked on such cars as the Range Rover and the Rover SD1, there were last minute changes to the ADO88 and the code name changed to LC8 and the classic Metro shape was born....every single exterior panel was redesigned by Bache and the rest is history! A large multi million pound re-tooling and expansion project stated at Longbridge in 1975 and the new model was set to launch in October 1980.....the Metro was extensively built by state of the art robot technology and the car was launched with the strapline 'the car to beat the world'....well it actually needed to beat rivals such the the Ford Fiesta, the Renault 5, the Fiat 127 and the VW Polo to name a few. The highly patriotic advertising paid off and the 'the car to see of the foreign invaders' was an instant hit and by 1981 the car was the best selling 'supermini' in the UK. The Metro enjoyed a rather extended lifetime and was actually badged up as an Austin, an MG, a Rover and then the Metro changed its name to a Rover 100 in 1994....the car enjoyed almost a 20 year production run. The Metro could be a very fast little car too...the MG badged versions offered rather high performance from the legendary A series engine with fuel injection and turbo versions of the car. The Metro model range stretched from base models with vinyl seating to range topping luxury models such as the rather swish 'Vanden Plas' with comfortable seating trim and carpets and wooden trim and a rev counter to name a few features. The Metro was given the award by 'Motor' and 'Autocar' as the best small car in the world and did in fact manage to secure the fortunes of its maker, British Leyland,...but only for a short time. By the mid 1990's the competition had proven too great and Metro sales had declined heavily and the end was in sight, the massively popular Ford Fiesta was now outselling the Metro by a huge factor and was Britains best selling small car by a large margin. The Metro did extremely well in Motorsport too, the '6R4' finished third overall in the international RAC Lombard rally in 1985 driven by Austin Rover driver Tony Pond.