MG Maestro - MeGa Fast #Blogpost

The 1980’s saw a hot hatch boom, with cars such as the Golf GTi MK2, Ford Fiesta XR2i, Datsun Cherry Turbo, Renault 5 Turbo and many more. Austin, part of British Leyland at the time decided it wanted a slice of the hot hatch cake and began developing a high performance version of the rather mundane Austin Maestro. And thus the MG Maestro was born…

The first MG Maestro rolled of the production lines in 1983, badged the 1600 for its 1.6L R Series engine. But this model was plagued with mechanical issues, it was found to be rather hard to start when warm and since it had twin weber carburetors it was very hard to tune up. Many considered the Maestro 1600 to be incredibly under-developed and this was the case since it was rushed into production the same year its mundane brother launched despite protests from engineers. However despite the mechanical faults, MG managed to shift 15,000 cars in one year of production. In July 1984 a short lived S Series model appeared but this was eventually replaced in October 1984 by a much more reliable engine.
The MG Maestro 1600 in R Series guise produced 103hp and 100lb ft of torque.

The model that replaced the 1600 in october 1984 was the 2.0 EFi with a far more reliable fuel injected 2.0L inline 4. This larger engine came with more performance over the 1600 with a 12hp increase over its predecessor and it was well recieved by critics. The handling and performance was praised and this was Austin’s first model that seriously rivaled other hot hatches on the market, notably the MK2 Volkwagen Golf GTi which was the template for every hot hatch of the time. The 2.0 EFi was produced up until the models demise in 1991. The 2.0 EFi proved to be a large success for Austin.

In 1989 MG produced its most powerful version of the Maestro, the MG Maestro Turbo which went on sale for the 1989 model year and it was significantly faster than any of its competitors. From the 2.0L Turbo inline 4 it produced 152hp, almost 40 more than in Naturally aspirated guise, this enbaled the turbo to reach 60mph in just 6.7 seconds! Despite this only 505 were ever produced from its release until the eventual demise of the MG Maestro in 1991 just 2 years later. Its sales were poor due to the rather sedate bodykit and boggo Maestro looking rims, it was then sadly replaced by the new Rover 200 and 400 GTi models for the 1992 model year.

The MG Maestro is becoming increasingly rare these days with the Turbo being even harder to find, if you have ever seen one I would be interested to know.
Anyway thank for reading this short blogpost on one of Britain’s lesser known hot hatches and I hope you enjoyed!

Pokecraft03 (Car Catcher)
Lover of anime and cars alike