| Maestro History |
The Maestro was produced as the successor to the Allegro, and
shared many of it's innovative features, like being ugly and unpleasant to drive. The
Maestro was launched in 1983 and about 600,000 were made. Available in saloon and
estate versions, the engine choices were 1275cc, 1598cc or 1994cc.
My Maestro was a 1598cc automatic in metallic blue of 1988 vintage, and came free courtesy of
Lisa, who had rejected it after it had started to show signs of unreliability.
The car was reasonably sound but with a high mileage and showing it's age, and was
pressed into service for my daily journey to work. Quite soon the lack of reliability
started to show - the car needed a tune-up every couple of months or it wouldn't start,
and with an ECU and auto choke there wasn't anything to tinker with except the carb,
which had a tendancy to flood if the engine didn't catch first time. I became expert at
starting the engine standing outside the car, with one hand on the ignition key and
the other hand on the carb, lifting the dashpot, then running around under the bonnet
to blip the throttle and screw the dashpot back in without stalling (learned from the
AA man). At this point it was obvious I would
be the Maestro's last owner, so I painted it orange with a big white arrow. This was
inspired by an Avenger with an arrow which used to be parked outside my school when I
was a boy. The idea to continue the stripe over the roof and down the rear was inspired
by the paint job on a Mini featured in an arcade game in a local pub.
Apart from a swivel joint, an alternator, a wheel bearing and some welding, the car was
reasonably fault free, but the engine was very tired and losing compression and
therefore even slower than a normal Maestro automatic. The fuel consumption was not
good, mainly because of the auto box and because I drove with my foot to the floor
just to keep up with the traffic.
When the engine got so weak that it wouldn't go above 20mph uphill, the car was donated
to a local scrap yard, although parts such as the carpets, handbrake lever and seatbelt
stalks survived to become part of my Mini and the wiper
motor found a new use in my Lada.
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Maestro rollover stunt |
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