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.
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!
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."
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.
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.
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.
Please drop me a line if you would like me to add your opinion on the matter to this page.
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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. |
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"Dick Turpin", England
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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... |
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Jon Mower, England
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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... |
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Mike Duff, Freelance motoring writer
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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! |
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Andrew Jenkins, Swindon, England
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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. |
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Richard Porter, EVO magazine, BBC Top Gear
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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! |
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Alexander Boucke, Aachen, Germany
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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'. |
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Kevin Davis, Southampton, England
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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! |
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Atsuhiro Takeda
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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. |
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Richard Bremner, AUTOCAR magazine
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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. |
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Dale Turley, Bletchley, England
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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
Martin also extended this idea to the Montego, which funnily enough, looks little different!
Martin Gülich's work on the Montego... would more people have bought this?