This is all pretty sad really, I'm sitting here nearly three years after giving up Maestro ownership writing about it. That's because it was one of the most significant and definitely the most fun cars I have owned to date. It's worth telling the story though, as I hope it makes some entertaining reading for some fellow Maestro-heads out there. 

I bought my first Maestro, a 1987 light blue metallic 1.3 City, in 1992. It had about 60,000 miles on it and it was a main dealer trade in which was being offered for about 1,200 quid which was pretty good value for a car just over four years old. It needed a fair bit of tidying up as it had been used on a farm and the back seats seemed to have spent most of their time folded down with hay bales on them. The bumpers had been used as true bumping implements and there was a hefty whack on the nearside front wing. Given that I spent most of my time hiding out in my workshop at that time, the plan was simple. Strip it down to the bare essentials for a trip to the bodyshop and get a good daily commuting car for very little outlay. That part of the plan went OK as I knew a guy who ran a body repair business who sorted out the wing and some other minor scratches and dents and gave it a complete respray for about 250 quid. To sort out the bumpers, I visited a local breakers yard that specialized in Rovers and that was my undoing. 

Original '87 car DDZ393 before modifications started.

Every car I had owned up unit then had been modified in some form or another and I had been pretty determined that this one would not be as I had other projects in the garage that really needed doing. In the corner of the yard was a Montego Turbo which, after I had got my sensible bumpers of course, was stripped of it's anti-roll bars and its front brake calipers. The base model 1.3's didn't have anti-roll bars, so the improvement in handling was quite something. The car had handled well from the outset but this raised it's game quite a bit. To fit the renovated calipers and new discs I needed some bigger wheels so I plumped for 5 1/2 x 14" steel Montego wheels with some Good Year GT65's on them. The reason was simple, the next most popular performance tyre size was 185/60 x 14 which meant I could get good grip to match the handling for very little outlay. I used the plastic wheel trims off an old MG Montego and filled in the MG logo and painted them silver to make the car look smart but not overtly sporty. The look was much like the last of the line diesels in that it looked chunky but a bit too high. A set of Moto-build 2" lower springs soon sorted that out and it looked and handled better again. 

14" Steel wheels and Land Rover ride height.

The car now went round corners and stopped OK but needed a bit more GO to make a better package so when the head gasket blew about six months into my ownership, the ideal opportunity came to fit a ported head that I had been working on along with a K&N filter on an MG metro inlet manifold. That was combined with a brand new MG1600 exhaust system fitted with modified downpipes made by myself which all contributed to making it feel a lot sharper. It was still no roadburner but the combination of about 80 or so Hp plus good handling made it a hoot to drive. Over the next year or so, I added some Rover sport suspension bushes, Monroe gas-matic shocks and some super grippy Yokohama A509 tyres which all combined to make the car satisfying yet frustrating to drive because it just didn't have the power to push the chassis. There had to be a remedy.........

Enter Maestro EVO2. My wife now needed a car to ferry our expanding family around and so I bought another Maestro, this time a 1989 1.3L with a 5 speed 'box and a sunroof (Luxury at last !). The plan was simple, yet again. I swapped most of the suspension and other goodies from the old car to the new one and put the relatively fresh (40,000 miles) components from the new one onto the old one. Again, it was sent for a quick cosmetic tidy-up and respray. 

New car during 'tidy up' just after returning from bodyshop.

Completed car on a family holiday (Couldn't resist taking the plate from the blue car!)

By this time, I had an MG1600 R series engine complete with all its ancillaries resting in my garage. Over the next few months, I spent my time building a well modified engine for the car. When I took the bottom end apart and measured everything up there was no appreciable wear on the bores so the block was de-glazed in preparation for the original pistons with new rings. The crank was again in excellent condition and just needed cleaned up. The flywheel was suffering from badly chewed ring gear so a replacement was procured from my now friendly breakers yard and taken to the local machinists to have just over 1lb removed from the outer edge where it makes most difference. A new clutch was fitted and the crank/clutch was sent off to be balanced. I spent quite some time modifying the head on the standard valve sizes and then fitted a kent cams fast road camshaft. To finish things off, I used a Moto-build R-series race downpipe exiting to a standard MG Maestro 2 litre efi system and put 2 K&N filters onto the original Weber 40 DCNF carbs that came with the engine. I spent a week fitting all the ancillaries after fitting the engine in about 3 hours and then came the moment of truth. What a noise! The engine fired up after swinging the timing and I just couldn't get over how good it sounded. 

'R' Series engine during build.

After a brief running-in period, it was time to find out what it could do. It certainly felt quick but a visit to the local rolling road was required to see how good the estimated carb and timing settings were. I brought it down early one morning and was dispatched to the waiting room while I listened to hear my pride and joy being thrashed mercilessly behind the wall. They had done four power runs on the car and recorded a corrected best on the first run of 135bhp. I was happy with that and also to find that the timing settings were about right but that it was very rich right through the range running at 8% CO at the maximum power point of 6000 rpm. What should have raised my suspicions was the casual remark that it was running 'a bit hot mate'. On driving it home it felt a bit odd and was indeed running hot. It went onto three cylinders about a mile from the house and a quick check when I got home revealed a knackered head gasket. I rang the rolling road emporium to inquire if the fans had been on while the power runs were completed only to be told that they didn't have fans but that they would really like some but the boss wouldn't pay for them!! So a blown head gasket and two burnt out exhaust valves in the centre cylinders was probably getting away light when you consider that the car had been run at about 100mph in 4th gear 6ft from a wall at maximum load with no air circulating through the radiator. I didn't dare ask if it had been properly lashed down as well but a couple of weeks later I found out that they had 'lost' a tuned Nova on the rollers and planted it in the wall but fixed it before the customer came back to collect the car!  Yes, they are no longer in business.

The point of the story though, is to convey just how much fun to drive this car actually was. Thanks to the addition of a set of Spax adjustable dampers and Mintex M1171 pads, it just handled, gripped and stopped superbly. Oh yes, and then there was the bark of those carbs when you wanted to overtake anything. Cross country B-road blasts were a joy as you sincked through the quick shifted gearbox. It was just brilliant. The thing that finally killed it after nearly five years of ownership was a combination of money and rust. The engine was losing it's sharpness and the suspension was tired. Added to the fact that the bodyshell was starting to seriously crumble, it was going to cost a fortune of time and money to end up with the same car. I made a semi serious attempt to sort some of it out with a good secondhand tailgate and a lot of work to sort out a rotten rear wheelarch but things were going downhill.

 In those five years I had also acquired an MG Montego 2.0 as well to replace the original Maestro which was a comfortable and capable car, especially when fitted with a Janspeed exhaust and Moto-build 1" lower suspension. But I had also watched as this car also dissolved before my eyes and more than ever I longed for something that went well but didn't dissolve before my eyes. Enter an Alfa-Romeo 155 2.0 TS with a galvanized body and tuneful engine. 

Now after nearly three years of Alfa ownership, I'm still misty eyed over the Maestro as no matter how tuneful the Alfa's engine is or how much grip it provides through it's huge tyres, it doesn't deliver the sort of driving thrills that the Maestro did. This is purely down to the fact that everything on the Maestro worked seamlessly as a package, whereas bits of the Alfa excel on different roads. Maybe it's all just sentimental optimism, but it was a special car - no doubt.