The Group B rally car never got its original day in the sun, so MST Cars is reviving it for the modern era.
MST Cars is rebooting the Metro 6R4 Group B rally car with a small production run of just five units to start. These will not be original-specification units, but nor will they be restomods of original vehicles; instead, MST is building all-new models with a carbon fiber body and an Audi-sourced supercharged V6. And they will all be road legal.
Motorsport Tools (MST) is an engineering company based in Wales in the UK, and legendary in that part of the world for their unofficial recreations of Mark 1 and Mark 2 Ford Escorts – the precursor to the Ford Focus RS – in all kinds of sporting specs. But they're now turning their hands to another rally legend by reviving the Metro 6R4 – which was built for Group B to rival the Ford RS200 but ultimately never got to race in the classification. Without warning, the company took to Facebook to announce the new project.
The name 6R4 stands for 6-cylinder, Rally, 4-wheel drive, and MST is retaining all of these attributes. However, in place of the original 410-horsepower 3.0-liter V6 – related to the Cosworth DFV F1 engine – MST will be dropping in an Audi-sourced 3.0-liter supercharged V6. True to the original, this will be mid-mounted aft of the driver, but while the standard version of this motor produces 329 hp in the previous-generation Audi S4, for the 6R4, it will be dialed up to 450 hp, managed by a Motec engine management system.
It will retain a 4WD system, but instead of the original five-speed manual transmission, Sadev will supply a six-speed sequential gearbox and upgraded racing-spec differentials.
No performance claims have been made, but with carbon fiber bodywork by Innovate composites to reduce weight considerably compared to the original car's Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP), more power from the Audi V6, and a new transmission and differentials, the MST 6R4 will be absolutely bonkers in the truest sense.
Various options and specs will be available, but MST has not yet confirmed all the choices. However, a representative told CarBuzz that the initial five units would be road cars with bespoke interior trim and that lightweight rally/race versions will follow.
Handbuilt in Wales, these bespoke modern recreations of the 6R4 won't come cheap. MST tells us they will be priced at £295,000 excluding VAT, or approximately $360,000 at the time of this writing.
That's a lot of money by anyone's standards, but a bespoke recreation of a rally legend may well be worth it. After all, when Prodrive similarly recreated the Subaru 22B, it asked nearly double what MST is charging, and if you want a Singer ACS off-road racer, you're looking at more than $1 million.
While Americans may not be familiar with the 6R4, it's a legend in Great Britain. CarBuzz staffer, Ian Wright, grew up seeing these at rallycross events in the UK and, in his late teens, got to drive one briefly on a dirt oval. To call the car loud and exciting is an understatement. We can't wait to see how this modern interpretation lives up to the original.
Keyword: Metro 6R4 Rally Car Revived As Street-Legal 450-HP Weapon With $360K Price Tag