As a child I never really appreciated the Maestro but now I think it is a nice design and very practical.

My uncle had the Vanden Plas automatic Maestro and it was so comfortable and refined. Even though it was just a Maestro because it had the wooden trim, valour interior, automatic gearbox and I think it was the 1.6 efi so it was fairly quick as well as it was fuel injected, unlike the carb fed A series engine.. it was little thing like rear head rests, fold down arm rest with a inbuilt drinks holder and touch carpets made it feel very Jaguar or Rolls Royce type car. Then he sold it and brought the M.G Montego 2.0 Turbo and man alive was that quick. I don’t think it handled that great but on a strait went like the clappers. They nicknamed them the Exocet. Think it did 0 to 60 mph in 6 seconds which was in the Cosworth territory..

My uncle had a Maestro 1.6 efi Vanden Plas, and it said it was one of the best cars he ever had. Owned it for 5 years and never had any problems or let him down. And it was well posh inside. Electric windows front and rear Valour interior with thick carpets, rear head rests with fold down arm rest with drinks holder. Wooden trim digital clock, automatic gearbox in Metallic silver and you felt posh driving in it. One thing Rover did well was in their car interiors which we’re always more welcoming and typically British comfort, more so than Fords, Vauxhalls which felt really cheap and basic inside. Then he sold that and brought a M.G Montego 2.0 Turbo and it went like the clappers. Think it was down for 0 to 60mph in 6 seconds, that’s Cosworth territory..

Shakespear, I believe

The Tickford Turbo Maestros were a tad nippy. Definitely quicker to 60 than three weeks..... 😉 I still clearly remember Motoring Magazine adverts for them with words on the lines of "Faster than a Ferrari" ,,, The NASP MG Maestros had another clever worded advertisement. "The Golf GTi will be along in a second." Actually a shade more than that. A German MG Maestro 2.0i owner correspondent back in the day told me he was puzzled that so many Brits put the ordinary Golf GTi on so high a pedestal ... "along in a second".

yes, they would have been age related. The Ledburies came on a range of year plates, some apparently totally unrelated

Presuming both companies block reserved the registrations for the number of vehicles they bought, hence the consecutive numbers, the same as main dealers do. The DVLA knows how many vehicles will be registered for each year before they are actually sold and registered. The date on the documents will be the date of actual registration but may be the previous period registration plate. Dealers often apply them to vehicles they want to shift before a model update, often at a discounted price with included dealer fit optional extras. Any registrations they don't use get returned to DVLA for use as age related or sold as cherished numbers if the combination is worthy. They and dealers don't like doing that as all the sales/registration figures have to be altered.

i am sure i’ve seen some ledbury maestros with worcester number plates so UY NP AB series

I think I remember seeing 1 registered X*** JNH years ago.

@@Andy-eo3mq probably a Ledbury as they had quite a range

after 1985 the maestro dashboard which originally was a multi piece item which was subject of lots of complaints on the early cars it was replaced with the one piece moulded montego dash and steering wheel so the two cars had identical dashboards then when the change happened the voice activated onboard computer was deleted

Dice????

😂😂

Sounds like it wasn’t actually a bad car then.

@@matty6848 I think it was really a good car. Not bad looking, spacious, comfortable, well equipped in the VP models. The problem was, that Austin/Rover bouilt the so poorly. So everyone just assumes it's trash even though it's not the original one. Even though I'm from Czech Republic, dunno how, but ever since I was a kid I had a leaflet book on the 80's Austin/Rover (my uncle used to work in West Germany, so he probably brought it here from some car show, because it's in German) and I really liked these cars ever since. The Metro, Maestro, the Montego and the SD1. I was so amazed that the Montego Estate could even be a seven seater. It just shows, especially after seeing Quentin's bit on the Metro on Top Gear, that these cars not neccessarily have been badly thought out, they were just so badly put together thanks to the sooo bad working morale. I mean even though the UK is widely regarded as the most "western democracy" state together with the USA, the Austin/Rover company succumbed to all the problems that we, in Central and Eastern Europe had everyday under the Soviet Union rule. Only with one exception - our so laughed at car industry made it out and survived to be thriving so well now (though the polished shit policy of the "technology" and electric cars makes it a joke now again, but that goes for the whole VW group cars), the British industry went bust.

James you are correct, 2.0 Clubman D.

yes I remember the diesels on an "M" plate

The Bulgarian workers certainly could not have been worst than the British. The British had been building vehicles for a century and still couldn't build them well for a majority of their manufacturers.

The Maestro would have been a class leader in the late 70s. Sadly they launched it 5 years later.

At the right price it was as good as a Skoda Favorit or Felicia. I owned two Favorits and two Felicias from 1990 to 2014 ( plus five other Skodas since). The Maestro was roomier, handled just as well and was fairly robust. The 1.3 A plus engine is perfectly OK, if dated. If Skoda were given import duty advantages to Bulgaria and were backed by the might of VW, then those factors alone would have killed off the Maestro quickly enough. Shame about the van gearing which rather spoils it for the UK. Maestro was not that bad a car overall, though nowhere near VW Golf standards, but then neither was anything else on sale at the time.

I was waiting for someone to clock that! I fitted it because the original back box was in poor shape and would fall off a lot because when the car was fully loaded it would catch the rear axle. I’m going to have a proper one fabricated in the correct location in the future but this will do for now and sounds great lol.

Crikey, I'd forgotten about those!

... or what about a Lonsdale?

@@CoastHobbit9340 OMG yes!!!

Driving an early Maestro would turn most drivers into hardened smokers. Where did they stash the bottle of Scotch though? 😆

I had to replace THREE indicator units on a Montego in the space of two weeks. One was missing when I bought it and the MoT was coming up. One worked loose and fell out somewhere on a drive somewhere in deepest Dorset. A third one was stolen (!!) from a cinema car park, obviously from another driver plagued with the same issue.They were very easy to remove by just pulling them out and stretching the retaining spring. I assume Maestro indicators had the same rubbish design!

Im hoping it was being delivered as it was so clean, not broken!

@@furiousdriving To me it had never even come to mind that it could have been broken.

Alfas don’t break they just want attention

They were UK only, but some owners might have taken Left Hand Drive ones to Italy to leave at holiday homes

Don’t feel like you missed out. They were awful cars

@@furiousdriving yeah i heard that info in your video but i really never EVER saw one of those here.. maybe they are all hidden in tuscany were all brits come for holydays 😆

@@ianjenkins4641 every "awful" car has an history i think.. even some italians hates the 126, that has a big historic importance for Poland.. think about the Trabant: made from plastic and resin, 2 stroke 2 cilynder engine, 4 speed.. but its part of history and its rather cool in a "Nerdy" sort of way 😁 cheers

until 1986 it was badged as austin maestro and then after then it was just maestro then later on rover maestro!

Yes, I heard that - we spoke on Twitter about importing and driving it after they were talking about that stuff on there

@@furiousdriving really great to get the mention by two influential presenters and all your other connections, really enjoy your reviews and your attention to details and knowledge,Always feel well informed and often tell others my new found information Keep up the fantastic work

The layout's not specific to these cars, later production Maestros and Montegos had the controls moved around. There was an intermediate version where the buttons for the heated rear window etc were in the middle, where the rotary heater controls are in this model.

Which wasn't as roomy!

@@hunchanchoc8418 you are correct in less room but it was more refined and comfortable and better built, the xud/td could not match the perkins td in economy tho not a large difference. The maestro diesels could have been even better if they had vp trim or mg trim. Why i sold both cars on is a pet hate of mine….rain water ingress…maestro leaked into front footwell and 218 leaked into tailgate and rear light units

@@eggy1962 I agree with everything you say. :-)

that was a strange thing he did in that speech. Made no sense