The industry norm for the mid-1980s was for a car design to
last about three-to-four years before it received its first facelift. In the
case of the Maestro, the first facelift was planned for even before the original
hit the streets.
With thanks to Stephen Harper we
now know just how radically they were thinking when it came to de-scolloping
the Maestro. Looks exciting, doesn't it?
How to beautify the Maestro...
Step one:
Existing sheet metal
Existing screen roof, door panels and tailgate
New smooth applied front end incorporating air intakes and spoiler
'Service band' around scollop feature incorporating all lamp units, number plates,
etc
Aerodynamic mirror design
Flush side glass incorporating Medusa-type opening lights
Aerodynamic sill design with particular attention to yaw requirements
Rear tailgate lip spoiler
New rear quarter panel or cladding to achieve fully enclosed rear wheel
Rear lower panel spoiler, if required
Aerodynamic wheel design with Ford Probe style flexible wheel skirt
Flush front and rear screens
Smooth underside.
t is a widely known fact that back in 1982, BL's newly appointed director of design, Roy Axe was shocked to discover that the company's vitally important new car, the LM10, was somewhat stylistically challenged. He put it in these terms, "I thought this design to be something of a disaster. The proportions were bad and the detail awful and clumsy. The concave sides made the design look weak and the whole thing looked totally dated."
If that seemed a little unfair on the Maestro, it must be remembered that in 1982, the industry's style-lead had been set by the handsome Ford Escort III. In many ways, the Maestro was of the generation previous to the Escort (it had, in fact, been styled in 1975/1976), but due to delays, it would be hitting the market very late.
After being told firmly by management that there was little that could be done to improve the Maestro in the time left (it was due to be launched just over a year after Axe's first viewing), the task of putting the Maestro right would have to wait until its first facelift. in 1983, this project was defined as the AR7, and given that this was a facelift (and therefore, no major mechanical or structural changes were contemplated) it centred on putting right the two main areas of the Maestro's styling that most disquieted Axe.
Firstly, those concave sides: the scollops may have been functional
(they added a degree of strength to the door pressings, whilst also keeping
the door tops cleaner in mucky weather), but they also managed to date the car
terribly. As Roy Axe stated, it also made the car's flanks look weak. Given
that, AR7 would receive re-profiled sides - smoothing off the scollops and wheelarch
panels.
Secondly, there was the matter of the dropping shoulder line (the
point where the doortops meet the windows). For the Montego, Axe devised some
Heath-Robinson window cappings that disguised this, but it was something that
would need to be fixed at the facelift. For AR7, therefore, a more traditional
rising shoulder line was drawn in, giving the Maestro a more pleasing
"wedge" design to it. Subsequently, Roy Axe has described the facelifted Maestro
as a pleasant looking car, somewhat redolent of the 1991 General Motors Astra.
Austin-Rover's designer Gordon
Sked knew Ian Beech's Maestro shape intimately - he was one of the designers
involved with styling the saloon variation (initially called LC11, then LM11
before being launched as the Montego), and when asked to come up with a de-scolloped
version in 1981, he produced a number of pleasing variations. Here are two that
manage to move the Maestro forward considerably, although many would say that
there's a more than a passing resemblance to Ford's Eltec
concept. Except that car was first shown in 1985...
Sadly, AR7 was cancelled in the light of the emerging Rover-Honda AR8 (and budgetary pressures in the lead-up to privatisation), and the Maestro was left to soldier on in its original form.
Step two:
Existing sheet metal
Existing screen roof, door panels and tailgate
New smooth applied front end incorporating air intakes and spoiler
'Service band' around scollop feature incorporating all lamp units, number plates,
etc
Aerodynamic mirror design
Flush side glass incorporating Medusa-type opening lights
Aerodynamic sill design with particular attention to yaw requirements
New tail door incorporating 15 degree angle with roof spoiler applied at vertical
face of tailgate
New rear quarter panel or cladding to achieve fully enclosed rear wheel
Rear lower panel spoiler, if required
Aerodynamic wheel design with Ford Probe style flexible wheel skirt
Flush front and rear screens
Smooth underside.
Quick poll:
Feedback:
Have your say...
The Maestro was probably the best-looking
small medium 5-door hatchback of the period.
The Volkswagen Golf was better built (at its
price it should have been) but bland. In my
humble opinion, the Maestro had a light, modern
but unmistakenly Britsh look about it with a
cheerful open glassy feel and excellent visibility.
"Dick Turpin", England
I think that it would have been a better
looking car without the scollops; but then in
the days of BLMC-BL these sorts of things
were not really considered. "Design them,
build them, sell them"... It would be
interesting to see what a "clinic" today
would make of this car...
Jon Mower, England
Sorry to be controversial, but I don't think
it makes a whole lot of difference. Remove
the scallops in the doors and your eyes are
drawn to the enormously tall glasshouse
(roughly half the height of the car is window)
which looks slightly ungainly. And it didn't
do anything about the Maestro's most 'ageing'
features, which to me were the tailgate and
rear light treatment, plus those oh-so-oblong
headlamps. Still, it's a fascinating glance at
what might have been...
Mike Duff, Freelance motoring writer
I think that the side profile looks a lot
better - Golf Mark 2ish towards the front.
However it was always the rump of the car
that I couldn't get on with - too much of
the equally maligned AMC Pacer about it!
Andrew Jenkins, Swindon, England
My God, Roy Axe was right - it looks much
more substantial without the scallops.
Now drop the sills, tidy the window frames
and stop the bumpers tucking under and at
last you'd have something less reminiscent
of your grandma in a tracksuit.
Richard Porter, EVO magazine, BBC Top Gear
The look of the original car in profile
is just great - due to the scollops, as
the allow a great deal of play with light
and shadow, enhanced with metallic colours,
where most modern cars look really boring.
Why do so many people think the the Maestro
looks fragile like it is and more solid
with plain sides? No, that car has a real,
distinctive character - from all angles!
Alexander Boucke, Aachen, Germany
It looks stronger, but it's not enough.
As Harold Musgrove said when he first saw
the Maestro, 'is that it? A car should
remind me of my girlfriend,THAT reminds
me of my grandmother, it's awful'.
Kevin Davis, Southampton, England
It looks so much more modern and
substantial... With the scollops, the
design looked dated, whilst making the
bodywork look weak, as if it needed a
crease to strengthen a door. I always
wondered if this was one of the reasons,
and your passage confirmed it!
Atsuhiro Takeda
Removal of the scollops has an amazingly
positive effect on the apparent solidity of
the car, making the best of its four-square
stance. Seeing it like this makes you want
to have the window frames tidied up, then
the rear lamps... and before you know it,
you'll have a new car... I guess the scollops
were intended as a progression from the
Range Rover's - trouble is, they worked
on that car, but not on the Maestro.
Richard Bremner, AUTOCAR magazine
How uncanny is that?
Take a good look at that Maestro
rendition - from the C pillar forward,
it could easily be an E30 3-Series
makeover... I'd buy it.
Dale Turley, Bletchley, England
For me the side scollops are THE defining
feature of the Maestro & Montego! If that
facelift was produced - would it not just
be seen as Austin Rover admitting it had
the styling all wrong in the first place?
Richard Gelder, England
2004 computer mock-ups
A question asked by many Maestro and Montego enthusiasts to this
day is, what would it look like without the scollops?
Martin Gülich is one such enthusiast, and using Photoshop, he produced the image
that heads this page. Martin remains unsure, because obviously the scollops
are one of the Maestro's defining features: "The scollops make an otherwise
rather bland design more interesting and crisp. They add quality to the Maestro
that it otherwise wouldn`t have. Looks plainly too much like a Talbot of the
time. Not a style icon either…" Personally speaking, I think the Maestro looks
stronger without them.
Martin Gülich's work on the Montego... would more people have bought this?
This picture (of Jonathan Sellars' MG Maestro EFi), generated by Martin Gülich
clearly
shows that the David Bache-inspired side scollops that adorned the Maestro's
flanks
did it no favours whatsoever.
t is a widely known fact that back in 1982, BL's newly appointed director of design, Roy Axe was shocked to discover that the company's vitally important new car, the LM10, was somewhat stylistically challenged. He put it in these terms, "I thought this design to be something of a disaster. The proportions were bad and the detail awful and clumsy. The concave sides made the design look weak and the whole thing looked totally dated."
