Having the UK Show and Motorsport seasons effectively close down over winter is actually kind of handy as it allows us here at Garage Awesome to get out there and find some other cool stuff, including up to date news and some fresh feature cars for you to browse through in between your last minute Christmas eBay sessions!
And it’s eBay where the story of Chris Antcliffe’s Metro begins, now before I go any further, I know what you’re thinking… ‘Metro?’ Yup, I had the same quizzical look when I announced that we were off to shoot this car from both Chris and our often sceptical photographer; Coop, however, we made the trip to Newark to try to convince them both I’d not totally lost the plot!
Chris came across this rarely seen Metro whilst browsing through eBay, he saw the car, loved the colour, popped in his bid and a few hours later became the latest name on the logbook of this 1989 Metro.
However, the 20 years of life so far had taken its toll on the bodywork of the car, fortunately though, Chris is a dab hand with cars and especially bodywork, so he got stuck into replacing the ageing and rotten panels including both of the front wings and the driver’s door and re-sprayed them in the standard factory colour; Solar Yellow, all on his own back garden, top work Chris!
With the car structurally sorted, Chris turned his attention to making the car stand out, well, stand out more than a bright yellow Metro already does! He found a set of 12″ Revolution alloys, and finished them in gloss black, which we think suit the car perfectly. Wheels are the most important choice on any project and the Revolutions just work on this car, keeping that retro style but also slotting in with the modern trends that are occurring within the scene today!
Following the 2010 scene flavour, Chris got busy with the stickers too, with some cool and cheeky slogans scattered across both front and rear windows, “Scrapage Scheme Survivor” and “Rust is lighter than Carbon Fibre” being a couple of our favourites!
The exterior was almost sorted, but a bored 5 minutes at work saw Chris looking at the Metro and deciding it wasn’t sitting low enough, so out came the spanners. “I’ve no idea how much lower it is” says Chris when we asked him at the shoot, and that’s down to the Metro having funky Hyrdagas suspension, meaning all Chris did was let some of the pressure out of the shocks until he was happy with the height, and that’s that, one lowered Metro!
Having owned the Metro just over a year now, it’s fair to say Chris has made some real key changes to the appearance of the car, and ones that work well, but Chris spends most of his time inside the car so it would be a shame to leave that standard, and Chris agreed, throwing away the “granny” spec front seats and replacing them with a set of Recaro reclining seats straight out of a car of a similar vintage, the Ford Escort RS Turbo.
A Sparco harness keeps him held tight to the seat whilst battling with the funky multi-coloured steering wheel on those tricky B-road blasts. Under the bonnet you will find a 1275cc lump that powers the Metro, although talking to Chris the word “Turbo” was mentioned, so maybe an engine swap and upgrade is on the cards for the future?
As for the future, it may not be the last time we see Chris and his cars on here, he is hoping to take it to a few shows in 2011, and amazingly is also finding time to build a Hillman Imp too that may well appear on here once completed, not the usual garage line-up for a 19 year old!
So, there we have it, not your run of the mill feature car, but by the time we left our shoot location, everyone was convinced that Chris had definitely created something cool and different, something every modifier is striving to do, and speaking of location, Garage Awesome would like to thank AW Accident Repair Centre in Newark for allowing us to use their yard and even their paint oven for the shoot, thanks guys!
Finally, as this shoot goes live, it’s the owner, Chris’ birthday, so happy birthday Chris from us all here and a reminder to you all during this off season period; if you have a car that you would like a shoot done for, or think might be worthy of seeing on the pages of Garage Awesome, then please contact us and the best way is through our Facebook page, after all a slightly dark, mobile upload was what lead us to featuring this fine yellow, retro, Metro!
Pic Credits – Rich Cooper
