I had the Metro's bigger cousin the Maestro . On the day I picked it up from the Garage on its inaugural trip I decided to go to the Gateshead Metro Shopping Centre . Given this was a Saturday and the size of the Shopping Centre you can imagine how busy it was . I left the Car park just after the Stores had closed joining the throng from the Car park exit onto the one way road exit from the Centre .
After a couple of minutes , there was a large bang and then nothing . At first I thought I had been clipped but to my horror the realisation struck me that I was unable to change gear owing to the clutch pedal hitting the floor and not springing back . The clutch cable had snapped and I was immobile no easy way of getting out the car surrounded by cars , tailback ever growing, car stuck in gear , no way of changing it to neutral so if I managed to get out the car we could have pushed it out the way .
Eventually the Police showed up by which time I had caused a significant traffic jam with the traffic stretching back as far as the eye could see around the Metro Centre . They managed to cone me off and get some of the traffic going , they called a tow truck and my brand new car was winched unceremoniously on to the back of the truck and we were sheepishly ushered into the Tow truck cab in front of pairs of scowling eyes as the cars crawled past to make their much delayed journey home .
Needless to say it was my first and very last British Leyland car , traded it back to the garage on the Monday for a reliable VW.
