Unsung heroes: MG Maestro Turbo

The unsung heroes series seems to have become rather more occasional than I intended, but here at last is a new entry. This one has been on my list of candidates for a long time and I was finally spurred into featuring it by attending an event that celebrated its 30th birthday. Consider the Austin Maestro, a thoroughly uninspiring bread-and-butter car driven mainly by pensioners with nothing for petrolheads to get excited about. However, you may be surprised to learn that 30 years ago at the height of the performance wars, someone at Austin-Rover went berserk and added a large dose of spices to that butter, creating the hottest of all hot hatches...

Doesn't look that special, does it?

Back in the Field of Dreams

The weekend just gone marked the first anniversary of the muddy spectacle that was Shitefest 2016, and it was appropriately celebrated by being back in Chris and Claire's Field of Dreams. This year's official Shitefest took place at the beginning of the month at the Bubble Car Museum in Lincolnshire, but Chris decided to hold another open day in the field for visiting Autoshite members. So it was that another small group of shiters convened on Sunday for more tinkering, visiting cars this time including a beautiful Fiat X1/9 and a smart K-reg Astra diesel estate.

Dream cars: MG ZT 385

One genre of car that fascinates me is the 'sleeper' or 'Q car'. I just love the concept of a subtle and understated performance car that looks for all the world like an ordinary bread-and-butter model and doesn't shout about its power but can give other drivers quite a shock. A great example of such a sleeper is the V8-engined MG ZT 260 and I certainly wouldn't mind owning one of those, but since we're talking ultimate dream cars and don't have to be realistic, I'll go for the full-on but sadly stillborn supercharged ZT 385 to put in my fantasy garage instead.

It looks nothing special but appearances can be deceptive