August 2018 – Today we have purchased TRRL Austin Rovers MILLION POUND Austin Metro. It has travelled just 9,200 miles from new. This is a real “one off”. This is a development car between TRRL and Austin Rover. (Click on images for more pictures) Scroll to the bottom of the page for the “Thames News” Video
August 2018 – Today our Austin Metro was delivered to us to as we did not want to put any miles on the car, which is currently 9,220. We contacted Mike who we found on ebay. His number is 07460 090663 or email: belle_epoca@outlook.com who turned out to be a great chap to use for collecting cars. As you can see from the map, the journey was 3h 31mins – 166 miles, and Mike charged us £247.00 all in. He was always in contact with us, so we knew what was going on, and he was on time. We would recommend using Mike. (Plus he is a real gentleman). You can also find him on Ebay under: “SUSSEX MODERN OR CLASSIC CAR~BIKE~TRIKE TRANSPORTATION COLLECTION & DELIVERY”. He is based in Camberley, Surrey. Mike is a classic car man himself, and imports classic Lancia’s from Italy. (Click on images for more pictures)
August 2018 – TRRL Austin Rovers MILLION POUND Austin Metro. It has travelled just 9,200 miles from new. This is a real “one off”. This is a development car between TRRL and Austin Rover. (Click on images for more pictures)
The Sellers Advert:
1985 Austin Rover, TRRL [ transport road research laboratory] development metro, as the saying goes a picture paints a thousand words so after reading this please go to youtube and type in [austin metro million] i have posted a 50 minute video on this car showing and hopefully explaining all the cars development work with close ups as PSC1 and later ESV metro nicknamed the million pound metro as it was insured for £1million to cover the cost of the project to develop construct and build this unique on off car. This car was the brainchild of professor adrian hobbs of TRRL and Austin Rover and together they started development work on a pedestrian safety vehicle to show the world, design and safety features that could be adopted without dramatically changing the cars appearance which could reduce pedestrian injury in frontal collision. a standard 1.0 litre Metro was taken from the assembly line for work to begin and at this stage the car was to be known as PSC1 [pedestrian safety car number 1] and was white in colour and as you would expect all changes made to the car would be at the front.
The bonnet was made longer by 75mm this reduced the risk of the pedestrians head hitting the scuttle area, and wiper arms / spindles which could cause facial and head injury, the scuttle area was also modified to now conceal the wiper arms and spindles when not in use also reducing risk, the bonnet was also raised by 50mm this gave greater clearance between the hard engine components and the bonnet underside to reduce injury on impact, the battery has also been lowered. This design of bonnet is called the clamshell as it sits on top of the front wings not in-between them this is a design we see today on most new vehicles today have a look although it is executed a little better on todays cars. Both front wings are lower and are folded at tops and have small breakaway panels added at there fronts which are attached to the sides of each headlight another feature is the headlights are mounted on collapsible mounts which allows the headlight to move backwards on impact which disengaged both wing fillets and they are flipped out of harms way. The wing side sculptures are added to flow into the front panel which is from a metro turbo and the front bumper has been replaced with a taller deeper foam filled flexible covered item. Front slam panel is wider and unique as is the front grille, at this point work was complete on PSC1 and it was then displayed at the international conference of experimental safety vehicles in Oxford in 1985.
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