We featured an Austin Montego 1.6L as a Prime Find about a year or so ago – a very ordinary, very unexceptional car that perfectly embodied our “Any classic is better than no classic” mantra. One of just 39 examples of all Montego’s still on the road in the UK at the time, making it rarer than many an exotic from Maranello, Coventry or Newport Pagnell.
It created some amusement on our Facebook page, and as someone who was at the model launch and had to sell the Montego to fleet customers who were more interested in the alternatives from Dagenham and Luton, I understand some of that amusement. Nevertheless, here we are presenting another Montego as a Prime Find, but a very different one to last year’s rep’s special.
Making “sports” versions of standard saloons has long been regular practice among motor manufacturers. Among British Leyland’s main rivals, the letters SRi indicated the performance versions of Vauxhall’s Montego alternative, the Cavalier. They were certainly quick – I had three of them as company cars back in the 1980’s. For Ford, it was the XR4i Sierra with its extravagant rear wing that fulfilled this role, until they went even further with the Cosworth versions, which were truly quick.
BMC/British Leyland had long been a practitioner of this strategy, using the company’s sports car brand MG to scatter a little sporting stardust over bog-standard saloons.
Initially a stand-alone range, in the 1960’s we had a series of MG Magnette saloons that in truth offered little in the way of a performance advantage over the Farina models they were based on. However, as we entered the 1980’s, by which time BL was in dire straits, the octagon logo was put on a series of saloons – the Metro, Maestro and then the Montego were all given the MG treatment, which generally meant fuel injection or turbo performance boost, red seat belts, red detailing on the body, sports seats, and smart alloy wheels.
I drove MG versions of all three, and I have to say they were a lot of fun – I have fond memories of belting round Oulton Park one morning in an MG Metro Turbo, with the circuit all to myself ahead of a client track day – lots of fun!
The MG Montego EFi enjoyed an increase in power output of 14bhp over the standard 2-litre car to 117bhp, a decent improvement. This gave it a top speed of 114mph and it could cover the 0-60mph sprint in a shade under ten seconds, despite low overall gearing, not bad for what was basically a family saloon.
Autocar tested the EFi back in August 1984 and were in general pretty impressed. They liked the performance, the roominess, the handling, and in comparing it with a handful of rivals that included the Peugeot 505GTi, Sierra 2.0 Ghia, Vauxhall Carlton 2.0GL (not, interestingly, the Cavalier), BMW 318i and Volkswagen Santana GXS (now there’s a forgotten car!), picked the MG as their top choice, and to cap it all, it was the cheapest of that group. Unfortunately, despite this praise, the MG Montego suffered the same quality problems that afflicted pretty much all BL cars of that era.
Coming to our Prime Find, this is a 1989 – so a mid-period example – MG Montego EFi, but it is most definitely not your average Montego. It comes up for auction with Historics at their September 25th sale at Ascot Racecourse. Described as being in “time warp condition” and “must be seen to be believed”, this MG Montego has covered a mere 31, 402 miles and is claimed by the vendor to be “a pleasure to drive”. On top of this, the car comes with a good history file, including original fully stamped service booklet and old invoices.
White is not my favourite colour on any car, but I have to admit that this MG looks pretty good in it, and the relatively subtle red striping incorporated in the rubbing strips right around the car works well, as do the body-coloured radiator grill and door handles. Even the rear spoiler is in white. The interior is in a pale-grey velour, and based on the photographs that we’ve borrowed from the auctioneer’s website, appears to be in excellent condition. It, too, features a thin red stripe in the door cards and there is some red detailing in the seats, but thankfully no red piping around the edges.
Our Prime Find comes with the analogue instruments – initially, the MG was offered with then new-fangled digital instruments which did not receive universal approval, though some people did like them. Personally, I prefer the analogue set up.
There are currently just ten EFi’s on the road in the UK, making this is a pretty exclusive sports saloon, but remarkably for so rare a car, there are two others currently for sale – one comes up for auction with Manor Park Classics just three days earlier than our Prime Find, is in red and carries an estimate of between £8,000 to £10,000 but has a higher mileage. The other is in dark green with Tickford body kit and priced at £10,995 – both are claimed to be in excellent shape, so I would expect our Prime Find to be between £10,000 to £12,000. If my inexpert guess is correct, the new owner will be getting an almost new car. It’s being offered with no reserve, so is guaranteed to be sold – I’ll be checking up on both auction cars with interest. Meanwhile you can see the full lot entry for our Prime Find here, and as always, we recommend interested parties arrange an inspection before you raise your bidding paddle.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk