If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.

In a used car garage today an Austin Maestro on a 51 plate, registered in 2002 with 12,000 miles on the clock in red.

I thought the newest on of these that you could get would be a lot older than this - maybe on a K or L plate if you were lucky.

Wonder if this was just the garage having a laugh

Den

Kits to make them were exported to India or somewhere....some company were selling them from abroad back into UK - hence the plate.

Yeah I saw a program or an article about these.
Some company down South bought a job-lot of these in kit form from abroad where they were exported to originally.
It was a one-man-band kind of place, he was assembling them in his shed and selling them. They were all white base-spec models. Seemingly there was quite a high demand for them.

How sad! I can't believe there was still a market for these. The one I seen today was red and the garage was asking £2950 for it.

Was tempted.....

For about 0.00000000000000000000001 nanoseconds - LOL

Den

Is that a classic or a crock?

UB:D

IIRC at the time they were something like £3995 or £4995 new. For people with no interest in cars, they were a bargain. Personally, if I was that short of dosh and wanted a new car I'd have got a 1.0/1.1 Saxo for £5995

I saw one the other day on an R plate.

paul

When the Maestro's production was discontinued in 1994 a deal was decided upon whereby a number of bodyshells would be exported to Bulgaria for construction there, to enable small scale local assembly based on supply of CKD kits from the UK. Unfortunately the project collapsed because of market changes - the flood of used (stolen?) cars from the west, Skoda reducing prices on the Felicia to undercut the Maestro as it was launched, and Daewoo setting up a factory there to build cheaper Astra-based Nexias. About 2000 cars were made and about 1700 were exported around the world - over 1000 went to South America (550 to Uruguay and 400 to Argentina), plus 200 to Macedonia, and others to Jordan and Syria. The remaining Maestro kits that had not been exported became surplus to requirement... until Trans European Trading stepped in and bought up 621 kits (saloons and vans) which were assembled on the premises of a small service station in Ledbury, Herefordshire. This was to be the first time since 1994 that the Maestro was available new in the UK. The new cars had a very basic specification not far removed from the Clubman models and used the old 1.3 litre A+ engine. They appealed to a vast number due to their low price and simplicity, being in high demand all the time they were being offered.

[Edited by Carl2 - 12/22/2003 9:55:35 PM]

Hey, did you wonder why you couldn't register the name carl? ;)

I just assumed another Carl already had it. :p ;)

Same thng hapens with a lot of cars.

You could buy renault 19s new not long ago in Turkey and South America :)

I have seen one on a "R" plate before

Thats a classic, I had an MG Maestro before mt Scoob, what a great underatted little car:D
Cheers
Colin

Scoob99 says that's a classic...

Would that be a "classic" in Jeremy Clarkson's terms ....;)

Apparently every single one of those Ledbury assembled "new" Maestros had sold tickets on them. Surely good value, spacious and cheap as chips means of getting about. I've seen a couple on local roads .... or the same white one twice ....

Scoob99 .... was your MG Maestro a 505 turbo version? If it was, may explain your liking for a little "Suit you Sir" boost ....

[Edited by MGJohn - 12/24/2003 6:08:36 PM]

John, Mine wasn't a turbo but it had been tinkered by Moto-Build, uprated ECU and a Moto-Build exhaust system.
Cheers
Colin