Metro drawings & prototypes
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LC8 was not an entirely new supermini by any stretch of the imagination, using ADO88 as a starting point. The project was basically a restyle job - with Harold Musgrove cracking the whip over the Austin-Morris development team, ensuring that it was in production by the proposed launch date: the Birmingham Motor Show of October 1980.

The David Bache studio quickly produced a car based on this image. The shape was not vastly different to the final ADO88, but the detailing was much better.

This Roy Tucker drawing demonstrates that the company initially thought of the five-door variant during 1978. Its eventual launch in 1984 was so far behind the three-door version because it had never been part of the original ADO88 programme, and thus involved much previously uplanned re-engineering work.

By the end of 1977, the Metro's shape was set in clay (above, below).

1979/80, and a pre-production model undergoes wind tunnel testing. It emerged with a drag factor of Cd0.41, better than all of its contemporary competitors. Within three years, however, this figure began to look decidedly poor when compared to those of the slightly larger Peugeot 205 (0.34) and Fiat Uno (0.33/0.34).

This image will be familiar to anyone who followed the pre-launch stories of the Metro's development in the motoring press. The canvas tilt makes an effective, if unsubtle, disguise for the car's new rear end styling.

Cold weather testing - an undisguised prototype hits the road.

Copyright © 2002 Keith Adams