My Car

I knew this was a second car which has not seen much action lately as Roger has been out in his DAM 4100 (the successor to the Metro 6R4). I was expecting to hear about a lightly-developed Maestro Challenge car. I was wrong.

The car was built for David Gillanders in 1988 at a time when Metro 6R4s were banned from British rallies. The logic of putting Metro bits into a Montego shell was that Gillanders' sponsor was British Car Rentals and they had a fleet of Montegos. The car was built by Gartrac with a custom welded-in cage and is very strong.

The interior is utterly stripped out and even the dash is a one-off item. The glass is replaced with plastic and ventilation is via a roof scoop.

The engine is not a V6 but a Cosworth development of the two litre, sixteen valve Rover engine. It has butterfly throttles on a unique inlet, with fuel and spark orchestrated by a DTA management system with a tuned exhaust manifold. The motor will run to 8500 rpm and can deliver up to 275bhp at the flywheel. At the moment it is detuned to give a still healthy and less destructive 200bhp at the wheels.

Only the front wheels are driven and to get the power from flywheel to road there is an Extrac five-speed box with a straight-cut final drive with a ratio of 5.8:1. This gives a top speed of a little over 100mph - and so that this is not entirely achieved in one wheel drive, there is a ZF plate limited slip differential.

The Montego runs on 8" by 17" Metro rims. The wheels have to be big to fit over 12" four-pot AP vented discs all round, hanging off Metro struts and casings. Even the steering rack is off the 6R4.

The car is a long way from a standard Montego. Looking over the spec again it has much more in common with a current F2 kit car. Certainly the engine is much more developed than is allowed by current GpA rules - these would have left in place the standard plenum and manifolds which limit airflow and hence power potential.

Its looks are not on a par with a Megane Maxi but much of the equipment is of that quality. The major advances since this car was built have been in transmissions with sequential six or seven speed gearboxes and programmable diffs.

The next outing for the car is the Tour of Mull in late October to be followed by a run at Snetterton in the hands of Kevin Stapleton and Jim Miles. It seems the car may be ready for a comeback as Roger is thinking about taking it back to the forest for an attempt at the 1997 Mintex series.