Austin Metro

Classic & Sports Car's Metro buying guide is blunt: rust is the killer, and the rear subframe and especially its mounting points are common areas that can be costly to strip and repair properly. British Classic Cars names sills, floors, subframe mounts, tailgates and screen surrounds as the weak structure of the Austin-era car, while Wikipedia records that many Metros were scrapped - particularly the pre-1990 Austin models - as a result of the bodyshell's vulnerability to rust. The Practical Classics restoration feature shows what that looks like in real UK use: on one Metro City, the seatbelt mounts were almost coming off in the owner's hand, and sills, rear panel, front wings and a very large piece of rear quarter were cut away, the offside much worse than the nearside. The subframe bolts to the floor via sheet-metal pockets that corrode from the inside, so a car that looks clean above may have lost its rear structure entirely. Buy the dry, garaged survivor, not the respray.

The Metro used the Allegro's Hydragas system — displacers combining a nitrogen gas charge with hydraulic fluid — and the gas leaks away over decades whether the car is driven or not. The Hydragas and Hydrolastic Service specialists explain that a new charge was expected to last at most 15 years, there was no factory provision to top it up, most surviving units now sit so low on gas that ride quality is severely compromised and the chance of unit failure rises; pumping the car back to height makes the ride even harsher and shortens the displacers' remaining life, and second-hand or NOS units almost always disappoint because they too have lost gas. The fix is a specialist regas (the Telford firm offers it with a mobile UK fitment service) and C&SC agrees: Hydragas can lose pressure but is easily pumped, pipes can be repaired, but new units are unobtainable. Budget regassing both axles if the car sits low, knocks over bumps or has been driven deflated for years.

The cheapest Metros on the market are the Rover-era 1.1 and 1.4 K-series cars from the May 1990 redesign, and they carry a serious caveat: Wikipedia's Metro history records the K-series becoming notoriously prone to cylinder head gasket failure, with overheated engines often damaged beyond repair. The Metro guide puts the maintenance rule precisely: cambelt changes at six years or 60,000 miles are vital, any cooling leak demands immediate action, and checking the oil cap and coolant for oil-and-water mixing is the standing test — a head gasket replacement is a DiY-capable job but a tough one, with head skimming pushing the total past £500. A well-maintained K-series will cover 200,000-plus miles, but a neglected one is scrap before the labour is worth spending, so buy service evidence, not a badge.