Group B MG Metro 6R4 History

[RGM]

I was being a little vague in my previous posting as I was tired and posting from a telephone.

Quick history of my 6R4 times.

Worked for Nelson Engines and built perhaps a dozen or so metros for rallying.
Was with gartrac and Gillanders on the 1986 RAC in the chase car, he normally used a nelson engine but had a works developement clubman engine loaned to him for the RAC rally, a prototype resonance place welded into the plenum chamber cracked and was ingested, killing the engine.

Nelson motorsports ran Capdevilas car in both the spanish gravel series and also in tenerife with the Q plated car, painting it white for spanish rallies sponsored by tenerife tourist board and then flying the car back to the canaries and painting it yellow for the camel livery for that series.
In tenerife we won 12 rallies from 12 starts over two seasons.
He later damaged the engine on that and needed a replacement engine/car for the following weekend, so I flew to Holland and bought the Rothmans car from Hans te Pas, which after the street race in Oviedo where fernando came second to carlos sainz integrale by a second, the car was transported to tenerife, ran the last events of the year in camel colours, before defecting to marlboro for the following season.
If I can ever dig out photographs I will post them.

E264AAM was Nelsons car, as I said previous, ex gaydon test car with works type beefed up chassis. This is car that he pranged on Epynt with Nicky Grist in the co-drivers seat, the damage was superficial from that incident, but the chassis was a little off from the start following a prang at gaydon before Nelson bought it, it was damaged at the time of purchase but was close to being perfect when we ran it.
Yes second at the superprix sounds familiar, also second at silverstone, bad tyre choice, but first at donnington.

A20ROV is just a rolling shell and I have it here in sweden, if we can find an engine and diffs then we might get it running one day.

Chassis plates for 6R4's... as I recall the original chassis plates were never fitted to the cars at cowley, and in a strange coincidence, Sam Nelson bought a whole rack of shelves from the stores in the big auction when they shut down the motorsport department, and in amongst all the nuts and bolts and wishbone bushings were darned near all of the original prestamped chassis plates....

All the cars I ever saw only had the body number plates, with the three digit numbers on the right hand front turret, and on the rear below the oil tank, most cars had power steering tanks or kill switches fitted where the body number was located and they vanished.

A20ROV is one of the few metros I have seen with a chassis plate, although I assume it came off a regular MG Metro, but is now registered as a 3,0 liter.

Finally...

C84 RBD which is the car I renovated to perfect condition, but it had an ugly pikes peak type body fitted for hillclimbing, after the 1993-4 renovation it spent a lot of time in Iversens Glomma Papp "museum", I did retain 98% of the original rothmans parts, wiring looms, twin fuel cells etc. It also had the really rare schmidt 2-turns lock to lock quick-rack fitted, this wasn't on the original rothmans spec and I think only 6 of these racks were ever produced.
After the death of Iversen the car was sold (I couldn't afford it, but they did give me first option to buy), the new owner, sadly to say abused it pretty hard. The engine has blown recently. Oddly enough I got a call from the new owner this weekend asking me for help to repair it. There are no plans to restore it in Rothmans livery for a museum at the moment, although I have suggested it to all three of the previous owners...

More info and pictures if I find notebooks.....

mike at racing-green.com