Austin Metro
supermini British economy car
The Metro is a supermini car, later a city car, that was produced from 1980 to 1997, first by British Leyland (BL) and later by its successor the Rover Group. The Metro was intended to complement and eventually replace the original Mini. It was launched as the Austin Mini Metro sold under the Austin badge, and in 1982, sportier MG versions were made available. From 1987, the car was sold simply as the "Metro" after the cessation of the Austin brand. In 1990, the Metro was redesigned and sported the Rover brand name, sold as the Rover 100 abroad, which would also replace the Metro nameplate in Britain from 1995 onwards.
The Metro quickly proved popular and became Britain's best-selling car for some time. There was also a van version, sold under the Morris badge and later as the Metrovan. Although the R3-generation Rover 200 introduced in 1995 (and smaller than previous 200 models) had originally been designed as a replacement for the Metro, it was not marketed as such after its launch. The Metro (now known as Rover 100) finally ceased production on 23 December 1997, being outlived by three years by the original Mini that it was meant to replace. 2,078,218 Metros of all types were built.
“Austin Metro” enters the record as supermini British economy car. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Austin, Metro and supermini can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Austin Metro” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Austin, Metro and supermini provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1071866. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1980, 1997, 1982 and 1987.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Austin Metro” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.