Miguel Sánchez
If you live in the British countryside and have forgotten to buy your milk for breakfast, you can safely go for it in a modest MG Meter. After all, MG launched this small urban utility vehicle in 1980 to move around in a practical and economical way on a day-to-day basis. What is said a "Car to run errands."
However, this everyday act can be much more exciting if you do it not with a simple MG Metro, but with its version 6R4.
6-cylinder “6”, rally “R” and 4-wheel drive “4” ... One of those portentous beasts of the mythical Group B, with which Leyland Motorsport replaced the Triumph TR1985 V7 in 8. A brutal car but that, oddly enough, you can use to drive on the street as long as you have the papers in order and the lights work. And that is what its current owner does ... The British pilot Dan ellmore, which does his thing in this video going shopping ...
ONE OF THOSE BEASTS OF GROUP B
You are more or less fond of rallying, the denomination Group B brings to mind the image of some cars where many barriers related to sanity and prudence were broken. And it is that, although by regulation they had to be based on street cars ... What we have in our hands here is something that only in the headlights looks like the modest urban compact from which it comes, being so exclusive that they were only manufactured 220 units.
Leyland Motorsport - through its Rover brand in collaboration with Williams Grand Prix Engineering- devised for him MG Metro 6R4 a radical approach: combining the four-wheel drive of an Audi Quattro with the short wheelbase of a Renault 5 Turbo in a single car. A true power pump that would be powered by a 3-liter engine, 6 cylinder, 24 valves and double camshaft placed in central position to give a 410 CV coming from this ingenuity signed by Jaguar.
All this power, added to the important firms involved in the project, made foresee the success of this spectacular model which, if it weren't for the ailerons that provide it with a strong downforce… It would literally fly off. However, its premiere just a year before the end of Group B only allowed it to participate in 7 races of the World Cup. Races where Rover's attempt to build a winning car -still without turbo- It was revealed as something insufficient against rivals who enjoyed this little point of power typical of the turbocharger.
A NEW LIFE FOR THE 6R4
Although he managed to be the mount of Didier Auriol in his victory in the French Championship, as well as finishing third in the British World Rally event in 1985 ... The life of the 6R4 was stopped in its tracks when the FIA decided to ban Group B. This made MG withdraw from it in 1987. the rally -as he never really had enough funding to be completely serious in this competition-, selling parts and units to Tom Walkinshaw Racing.
Thanks to this company, the MG Metro 6R4 acquires the turbo, accessing a second life as a car of rallycross: those tests on mixed terrain circuits where the most normal thing is to see cars collide and jump in a kind of “crazy car race".
Fortunately, unit 188 did not have to suffer these attacks as it passed through different hands that used it mainly in British rallies ... and during 10 years in timed climbs in the Canary Islands! Where its owner at the time, Patricio González Hernández, adapted the steering wheel to the left. As you can see, a history of competition that does not mean that its current owner, Dan Ellmore, uses it to run some errands ...
