Buy this brand-new Metro 6R4 and enjoy some retro rallying

Here’s a chance nobody has really had since the mid-Eighties – the opportunity to buy an effectively brand-new Group B rally car.

Group B was, of course, the short-lived series that gave birth to some of the fastest and most extreme rally cars ever. Cars like the Audi Sport Quattro and Ford RS200. It was canned in 1986 after a number of serious accidents in which drivers, co-drivers and spectators lost their lives.

The 6R4 was Austin Rover’s entry. Development began in 1982, but it wasn’t until 1984 that it was ready for competition. As such the 6R4 didn’t compete in many rallies, and had limited success.

In line with the sport’s rules, 200 road cars were built for homologation purposes. This is one of those cars, sold new in December of 1986 to a man from Oxfordshire. After his death in 1996, it was sent to the Donnington Museum for display, where it remained until 2002, when it was sold to the current owner. It had only five miles on its odometer.

Today it’s on seven – the extra two miles the result of him running the car on stands. And it’s for sale. Silverstone Auctions will sell that car at its Silverstone Classic sale this summer, with an estimate of between £200,000 and £240,000. Still 100 per cent original – down to the unpainted plastic bolt-on flares and spoilers.

Would you buy it? And if you did, would you drive it?