Maximum Mini: The Mini Metro based Roadster that doesn't exist

Monday, 27 June 2022

The Mini Metro based Roadster that doesn't exist

Okay, this has little to do with Minis. But I wanted to share it here never the less as it is such an interesting little piece of what could have been British motoring history. It's a Mini Metro based roadster prototype, or at least bits of it, offered for sale directly from its creator Nick Shakespeare. Nick was working for Austin Rover as a placement student in 1983 when he came up with the idea. He wrote: "They gave me a Metro rolling shell to build the project on which I did at home." And so a concept was born. Well, the design sketches for one such car plus the left hand side of its body, hand made in steel, to make pictures of what looked like a complete car.

Nick continues: "But Roy Axe who ran Austin Rover styling did not see a future in MG at the time, so it wasn't progressed. Some early finite element structural work was done on the Metro body, which showed it lost 80% of its torsional rigidity when the roof was removed. As part of my degree I had to show how the structure could be strengthened and it ended up being stronger. They did make a Metro convertible subsequently."

Interestingly, the drawings do not show an A-series engine, but a 2.5-litre V6 placed amidships. A bit of a Unipower GT for the 1980s perhaps? Nick went on in engineering and design with various companies and set up his own company Bespoke Design Ltd 25 years ago, specializing in one-off and prototype car bodies. He kept the Metro Roadster side but offers it for sale now. "Would make a good wall hanging." he ads. See it for sale here.