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I thought a nice way to round off an unusually dry weekend would be to take the Maestro out for a quick run on some of the quiet, unclassified roads near my home while there was still about an hour of useful light to play with. The test route I normally use takes about 35 minutes and it’s a good mixture of tight, narrow corners and fast, straight sections of national speed limit. It’s slightly challenging in an older car you don’t drive every day but often rewarding all the same. Despite not having been out for several weeks the car took it all in its stride, but not without reminding me it really needs a steering & suspension overhaul at the first opportunity. The front end clunks and groans are getting quite unnerving.

While I was at the side of the road taking the picture above an oncoming Alfa 33 stopped dead, turned around and pulled in behind. It turned out the driver was an ex-Maestro 1.3 owner, taking his Alfa out for a quick run after completing some work. We spent about five minutes chatting about the ins and outs of both cars before going our separate ways.

This kind of exchange is becoming more the routine now, whether I’m stopped at a filling station or just trying to buy a tax disc at the post office counter. It usually begins with “I haven’t seen one of those for years!” and continues with fond reminiscences of a past Maestro experience.

A couple of years ago nobody turned a blind eye. Maestro drivers were public enemy number one. If you dared venture onto the roads in one it seemed to spark aggression in even the most passive of drivers. Admitting to owning one was akin to admitting a drug habit.

Has anyone else noticed this change lately? To me it’s one of the little things that sets a classic apart from a banger.

I think it’s probably fair to say I appreciate my comforts. Before I’d even put my MG Maestro on the road it had already inherited an impressive list of extras, many of which weren’t even available when it was new. Electric windows and sunroof, cross spoke alloy wheels and an upgraded stereo and CD changer are all on the little list of luxuries that have found their way into my humble eighties run-around.

Trouble is, instead of the Maestro I’m now driving a modern Rover crammed with every possible extravagance. It’s so refined it’s actually pretty boring to be brutally honest. When I get into the MG I want to be transported back in time… with a bang! So I’ve started to remove one or two of the non-standard additions beginning with the later grey centre console that was very prone to cracking in favour of the car’s original smaller item. Almost famously it used to have the digital instrumentation and trip computer from an early MG Maestro, great for novelty value but I never did quite get it working accurately. There were mixed reactions when I replaced it with the standard dials and I’m still in two minds over whether or not it belongs in this car.

It’s quite a novelty having to wind windows down on warm days (manually!) or adjust the seat position by pulling a bar upwards and making determined shuffling motions to persuade it in the right direction. As more and more toys become standard on even the most basic cars it’s little things like these that are already becoming a part of the whole retro experience. Not a sat nav unit in sight.

There’s a line of thought that suggests you should never do the same thing twice. I’ve just become an exception to that by signing up for a place on Staples2Naples 2007 after this year’s event saw me piloting (I think that’s the word) a 30-year old Allegro across Europe. It wasn’t the quickest or most comfortable way to travel but its uniqueness made it a great deal of fun everywhere it went even though I was secretly green with envy at my friend Simon’s £100 Daimler!

So I’m having a second run at it. There are still nine months to the rally itself and my inclination is to go for something a bit more powerful this time (Maestro/Montego EFi or an 827) and perhaps I’ll even do something a bit more creative with it.

I’m not planning on driving the distance alone so if it sounds up your street, drop me a line. Here’s one teams take on what happened in 2006.

I’ve been having far too much fun lately. Over the summer I’ve been able to pick and choose between four very different cars I’m running, I’ve spent more time than ever before travelling in them and I might even have indulged myself a bit more than I should have along the way. It’s all about to come back and haunt me so there’s only one thing for it. Yes, it’s time for a fleet review – something’s got to go.

I’ll rule the Maestro out straightaway, it’s worth more to me than it’ll ever be to anyone else and I just couldn’t bear to part with it… ever. It’s a similar story with the ministerial Rover 800 Sterling. A decade old it’s hardly worth a fortune but it is a supremely comfortable machine that fits me like a tailor made suit. I’ve enjoyed my brief flirt with Allegro ownership to the point of wanting another but it’s moving on and the space on my driveway is now filled by a rather dull and indestructible Saab 900 I acquired on this year’s “Staples2Naples”. The sensible thing to do would be to use it as a winter hack but if the truth be told, I’m already pretty bored with it. Sadly the car’s worth less than the petrol in the tank.

So does anybody want a Triumph? You can’t imagine how much I don’t want to do this, the Spitfire’s a beautiful car and one I feel privileged to own. Unfortunately it’s far too good to take out in anything other than fine weather so it’s a static exhibit most of the year and that’s just a waste.

Every so often a really fascinating book gets published. A lot of my purchases end up joining their friends on the shelf after the first few chapters as I run out of time or interest to finish them properly, but “Making Cars at Longbridge” had been devoured from cover to cover within three hours of the postman’s visit this morning. It’s fair to say I’d been anticipating its arrival for a long time.

The book tells the story behind a hundred years of the Longbridge “Austin” factory in pictures, and for anyone who never had the chance to take a factory tour before April last year this is probably the nearest you’re likely to get. Almost 200 pages of pictures depict life at the factory from a small ex-printing works among open fields in 1905 through its role in both wars, staff photos, expansion, offices, Montego mock ups taking shape in the styling studios, right through to the sad empty production lines last year and finishing of the last few Rover 75s.

Of course, more relevant to the staunch Maestro/Montego follower is “Making Cars at Cowley”. Both books are essential reading, especially if you enjoy a misty eyed look at happier times from our industrial past. Look them up on Amazon

It’s dawned on me that with so many other cars and projects competing for my attention I haven’t really said much about Maestros here lately. If I’m honest that’s because there’s been very little to report. When I haven’t been trying to send Allegros to Italy or Triumphs to Bromley, my faithful MG has been tediously reliable.

Here’s something worth thinking about, though. In one clumsy moment this evening I dropped a plastic seat belt buckle from just a small height onto a ratchet resting on the floor of the car. It didn’t just crack, it virtually exploded. Bits of shattered plastic and springs all over the place – what a mess! Looking around the car there’s not only the trademark crack in the dashboard but minor cracks in other bits of plastic trim too. Clearly the plastic trim in Maestros (and there’s lots of it) can become extremely brittle with age. That’s not a problem while it’s easy to find replacements, but I can see it causing many of us headaches in the future!

The last Maestro off the line is for sale again, this time on ebay.

The 36 mile Clubman D hasn’t seen the light of day for the last three years, but with only two days to go until its future is decided it’s hard not to feel a little anxious. Surely the exclusivity of this one should save it from ending its days as another cheap runaround?

It’s hard to believe that it’s now twenty years since the launch of the original Rover 800 in July 1986. I’d always had a fondness for the big British saloons since childhood, so it seemed only right that I should bring my Sterling to join its friends at the Heritage Motor Museum for the 20th Anniversary gathering, even if it was a slightly more low key affair than the Maestro & Montego celebration at Longbridge a couple of years ago.

Twenty cars felt quite encouraging given that had things been promoted more widely, I’m sure that number would have doubled. The thing that surprised me most is just how thin on the ground the original Mk1 cars seem to be getting nowadays, with only seven examples present. It’s as though they’ve quietly slipped away over the years gradually falling victim to disintegrating bodywork and electrics while nobody (me included) seemed to notice. I guess that’s partly down to the nature of big expensive to maintain cars that don’t sell ‘en masse in the first place, but perhaps it’s also time to start blowing the trumpet for the Rover 800 a bit more? In many ways, I’m glad we started doing that for the Maestro and Montego when we did.

It’s hard to believe that it’s now a year since MG Rover called in the administrators. With speculation over its imminent demise so often in the press over the last couple of decades I became blind to it in the end. Longbridge was about to celebrate its Centenary, Rover had been a household name throughout my lifetime, it produced cars I aspired to own and there was simply no question of this (to me) important bastion of Britishness ever being under threat. Unsurprisingly Patricia Hewitt’s announcement on 7th April last year didn’t go down too well here, and like others among us I only narrowly avoided my overwhelming compulsion to start throwing furniture at my television.

So, twelve months on what has actually happened? For most of us the stark reality of the situation has set in and we’ve become resigned to the worst case scenario, but it’s still agonizing to look back only a few years and consider what we had and what could have been. Aside from the tantalising stream of rumours and speculation we now know that a Chinese firm (Nanjing) now own most of MG Rover’s assets and have stated that they intend to restart some form of car production next year using part of the Longbridge site. Whether this will actually happen once the bills start coming in and without a dealer network remains to be seen.

Today’s “Pride of Longbridge Rally” one year on was a wonderful demonstration of the strength of the brand and the feeling that Longbridge evokes, and one witnessed first hand by a delegation of officials from Nanjing who themselves seemed to take much interest in goings on. Although I still wonder how successful their venture will be, today overall left me with a warm, positive kind of vibe. Maybe it’s just the time of year.

For the last month I’ve been driving my MG Maestro, which had to be disturbed from its winter hibernation early this year after my Rover Sterling developed an electrical problem. I retired the 100,000 mile Maestro from daily duties almost three years ago for the sake of long term preservation, but it really does deserve a pat on the bonnet for its performance in recent weeks.

This early return to the road has also given me the opportunity to have a few problems sorted out including the front tyre bald on its inner edge, caused as I suspected by tracking that was right off the scale. The journey to work in the mornings has certainly been different, too. An urgent growl replaces the Rover’s hum on the motorway, and you do need to think a little more carefully about what you’re doing. I want to be gentle but it’s hard not to be lured to exploit the car’s performance where the road allows – probably much to the surprise of many a rep-mobile.

Having just had my modern car returned I’m not missing the comedy central locking, frosty starts without a heater or having to turn the radio up loud to overcome the road noise. No, what I’m missing is the colossal £60 an hour charged by my local auto electrician. I’d be happy to bet that’s one expense those of you running an ’80s car every day are very unlikely to encounter!