Here's a bit of the story I don't think I knew before- Metro Turbos in French Supertourisme!
Just been looking on Forum-Auto where there's a fairly long-running thread on 80's Supertourisme pics (I've linked to it several times in the Rover and 635 threads) to see if there was anything new- and found this:
http://images.forum-auto.com/mesimag...2083%20mon.jpg
It's obviously one of the 1983-season Metros in Unipart/Daily Express colours- but what's it doing at Montlhery....?
A quick look at 1983 Supertourisme results on Frank de Jong's site comes up with the goods, as always...
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...lhery%202.html
It seems that a pair of Metros made the trip for the final 1983 round at Montlhery, driven by Patrick Watts (#10) and Gerard Spencley (#21). Spencley's name rings a bell as one of the regular French competitors in the European Metro Turbo series- pretty sure I remember seeing him at Silverstone more than once.
Neither car seems to have qualified for the race however- Watts was about 1.5 seconds off the back of the grid, and Spenceley about a further two seconds slower.
It certainly seems to have been a one-off appearance- I can't see any mention of further Metro appearances in France in 1983/4
Small fwd cars certainly ran in the series though, Jean Ragnotti qualifiying this Renault 5 Alpine Turbo 6th at the same meeting...
http://images.forum-auto.com/mesimag...0mon.jpg1..jpg
So what was the story? A unsuccessful one-off outing for publicity, or a toe-in-the-water look to see if a Metro Supertourisme programme was viable? It's at the end of the season, the weekend after the final BTCC round, and a quick search suggests that Spencley won the French Metro series in 1983- could a run in one of the Group A Metros have been part of the prize (although the final round of that series seems to have been at the same meeting)