Motorsport Tools is reviving the V6-powered Group B MG Metro rally car with an Audi engine.
Motorsport Tools (MST) in the UK is reviving the MG Metro 6R4 for 2024 as a high-performance rally recreation, with around 335kW on tap from an Audi-supplied V6.
The motorsport engineering outfit, which is best known for its fearsome Ford Escort-inspired recreations, confirmed that the model would be driven by Ingolstadt’s 3.0-litre V6 engine – as featured in the B8-generation Audi S4, only now with a supercharger fitted and a raft of other fettles for extra grunt: 335kW compared to 260kW originally. Power will be sent to both axles through a Sadev six-speed sequential transmission.
MST will build just five cars in 2024, each priced from £295,000 (AUD$542,000), and suggests that buyers can choose from a road-focused set-up with a bespoke interior or a ‘lightweight’ version for race and rally activities.
The MG Metro 6R4, loosely based on the humble Austin Metro, is one of the most notorious – if not successful – Group B rally weapons of the 1980s. It came third in 1985’s Lombard RAC Rally, but its unreliable V6 engine kept it off the podium during the 1986 season – during which Group B cars were banned from competing.
Revealed on the company’s Facebook account, the new-spec 6R4 will – like MST’s Escort-shaped Mk1 and Mk2 – be all but visually identical to its WRC forebear but with a number of modern touches that promise to make it one of next year’s most formidable road-going performance cars.
Chief among these upgrades will be an all-new carbonfibre body shell, engineered in partnership with New Zealand firm Innovate Composites, designed to the exact dimensions of the original car’s glassfibre body.
MST hasn’t yet confirmed weight figures compared to the 1040kg original.
The model will also likely feature a heavily reinforced chassis, as with the company’s previous creations.
MST doesn’t hold the rights to the MG or Metro name, so far referring to the car as the “all-new 6R4”.
The original car was famous for using the Cosworth-derived naturally aspirated six-cylinder unit that would later appear – with turbochargers – in the Jaguar XJ220 supercar.
There were two versions: the road-legal Clubman, with around 185kW, and the International, which ramped up output to 305kW for motorsport applications.
While the 6R4 will include an Audi V6, MST uses a 2.0-litre Cosworth-designed BDG race engine in the Mk1 and a 2.5-litre Ford Duratec lump in the Mk2, both of four-cylinder format.