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The Rover Metro is a very understated car. The Rover Metro GTi started out life as a 1.4 spi (single point injection) 16v metro with additional front shock absorbers and front and rear anti roll bars (only the GTa had a front anti roll bar, everything else went without). They came with alloy wheels (with wider and low profile tyres), sunroof, recaro bucket seats, half leather steering wheel, a few tweeks on the inside and a full bodykit, consisting of front spoiler, rear spoiler and side skirts. Performace was 95bhp and 0-60 in 9.4seconds top speed 115mph (the fastest metro to date).
In 1991 Rover released the Mpi (multi point injection) Metro GTi. Sharing the same basic engine, the induction and ignition system was totally replaced. Bhp was now over the ton mark with 103 and 0-60 dropped to 8.5seconds, the brakes were given an upgrade too with the fronts seeing vented discs. These ones can be spotted from the new style 7 spoke alloy wheels. Rover celebrated the new model by releasing 500 special edition GTi's with half leather seats, pearlescent knightfire red paint and electric windows. These wern't cheap though as an off the road price was �12,000 new! Options on both GTi's were alarm, immobiliser, remote central locking, half leather bucket seats, electric windows and on import models you could even get air conditioning. The car went through some visual changes with rover experimenting with colour coding bumpers and a few new colours. One in particular called caribbean blue is nice, which is a slight flip paint, going from bright blue to BR green in direct sunlight. Also the seat patterns were changed on later models.
The engines are really poky to begin with and leave so much potential for tuning. A 1.4 can be taken past 150bhp (not b/s figures either) and a 1.8 from an MGF or lutos elise is the same externally (it is the same engine) so fits in perfectly giving instantly 120bhp and 120lbft torque (almost 30lbft up on standard!!) and a 1.8 k series can be tuned to well over 200bhp. If you really feel the need why not supercharge it at the same time? 300bhp out of the box, but pricy. A friend from PMC runs his EVO vented metro gti at santa pod and his best time to date is 16.64. he hasn't had decent weather yet either and he hopes for 16.5. His car is a metro GTi MPi with a janspeed manifold, powerflow back box, decat pipe (standard centre section) K&N 57i and 15" compomotive alloys. He has beaten a modded Saxo VTS at pod and many other cars. Due to his 15" wheels he can now hit 60mph in 2nd gear, and 0-60 is estimated around 7.1 - 7.5 seconds and power estimated at 110bhp (his car weighs after removal of back seats just 810kgs).
An extreme Metro GTi is that owned by the Co-runner of PMC. His 1.8 GTi is currently waiting for its brand new VVC large valve
head to be fitted. It already has stainless steel exhauast from the manifold back (including decat), throttle bodies and a 3D
fully mapable ignition system to go with it. Power is expected around the figure of 220bhp. Should put his 1/4 mile time down
to low 13 seconds, if not less.
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