This 1985 Austin Metro Isn’t Quite What It Looks Like…

There are plenty of unusual cars in the huge collection we’re gradually revealing from Cheffins.

And then there’s this.

From the front, B557 CAV looks like a fairly ordinary blue Austin Metro. Walk a little further around it, though, and things become considerably more interesting.

Someone has stretched a Metro and turned it into a pick-up.

UPDATE: Well, that didn’t take long! After we shared our video of the Metro, former Perkins apprentice Simon Lee got in touch to confirm that he was involved with the project – and supplied period photographs of B557 CAV in its Perkins Training Centre days.

Simon has also given us some fascinating details about how the Metro came to be built. We’re updating the story below.

Yes, It’s A Metro Pick-Up

This isn’t simply a Metro with its roof chopped off behind the front seats.

The wheelbase has been substantially extended, there’s a separate rear cab panel and window, and behind that sits a sizeable load bed with a drop-down tailgate.

It’s quite a transformation.

The Perkins Story Is True

When we first discovered B557 CAV, we’d heard that the unusual Metro had been created by apprentices at Perkins Engines.

There was a Perkins badge on the front, but that alone wasn’t enough for us to present the story as fact.

So we put the car online and asked whether anybody knew more.

We didn’t have to wait long.

Former Perkins apprentice Simon Lee spotted our video and got in touch. Simon joined Perkins as a 16-year-old apprentice in 1990, remained with the company until 2012 and, crucially, remembers being involved with this very Metro.

Better still, he supplied period photographs showing B557 CAV wearing Perkins Training Centre signwriting.

According to Simon, Perkins operated a fleet of Metro vans alongside Maestro and Sherpa vans during the late 1980s and early 1990s. While most were eventually sold, this particular Metro was sent to the apprentice school as a project.

And the apprentices certainly didn’t take the easy option.

Simon says they lengthened the chassis and converted the Metro van into the pick-up we see today. He remembers the chassis extension being constructed from 4 x 2 box section steel.

The result, unsurprisingly, was heavy.

Apparently that created another rather entertaining problem.

With the additional weight – and, as Simon puts it, apprentice drivers – the Metro would break an engine mount on a regular basis.

Suddenly this strange old pick-up has rather more of a story to tell.

A Metro Pick-Up Wasn’t Quite As Daft As It Sounds

Here’s where the story takes another unexpected turn.

The idea of turning a Metro into a pick-up wasn’t unique.

In November 1984, contemporary trade newspaper Commercial Motor reported on a Metro pick-up developed after a large fleet enquiry for a small British-built pick-up.

That vehicle started life as a one-litre Metro 310 van. Its bodywork behind the front compartment was extensively altered to create an open load bed, with a new rear bulkhead and tailgate.

It wasn’t this car, as far as we can establish, and we’re certainly not suggesting any connection between the two.

But the timing is fascinating.

Someone was sufficiently convinced by the idea of a Metro pick-up to develop one commercially in late 1984.

And B557 CAV dates from 1985.

But Why Stretch It?

That’s the bit we particularly like.

Converting a Metro van into a small pick-up is one thing. Lengthening one to create something approaching a miniature British ute is quite another.

Look at it in profile and the proportions are wonderfully strange. The familiar Metro front end is followed by an unexpectedly long gap before you finally reach the rear wheels.

Then there’s that enormous flat load cover and home-made-looking tailgate arrangement.

Whatever its original purpose, somebody put a considerable amount of thought and fabrication into creating it.

We now know it was an apprentice-school project, although precisely why they chose to stretch the Metro quite so dramatically is something we’d still love to discover.

What we do know is that a considerable amount of thought, fabrication – and apparently some very substantial box section – went into creating it.

Another Surprise From The Cheffins Collection

B557 CAV is another vehicle from the remarkable deceased-estate collection Cheffins invited UK Barn Finds to see before the auction catalogue went live.

There are almost 70 vehicles in the collection, all due to be offered without reserve.

We’ve already shown you a March 1968 Mk1 Ford Escort in decidedly challenging condition and a 1972 Bedford HA van.

Now we’ve got a stretched Metro pick-up.

And if you’ve been studying the backgrounds of our photographs, you’ll already have realised there are plenty more strange and interesting things still to come.

The vehicles are due to go under the hammer at Cheffins in Sutton, Cambridgeshire, on Saturday 17 October 2026 as part of the firm’s two-day Vintage sale.

Were You Involved With This Metro?

Thanks to Simon, we now know considerably more about B557 CAV than we did when we first walked around it at Cheffins.

But we’d still love to hear from anybody else who remembers the Metro from its Perkins days.

Were you one of the apprentices who worked on it? Did you drive it, repair it or simply see it around the training centre? Perhaps you’ve even got more photographs tucked away somewhere.

If you have first-hand memories, photographs or anything else that could add to the story, please get in touch with UK Barn Finds.

It would be fantastic to piece together even more of this extraordinary Metro’s history.