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We recently featured Lucy Worsley’s Bulgarian-built Maestros, but Patrick owns an even rarer version. His 1986 Moonraker Blue HLS is believed to be the only example on the road in the UK and ‘This car has only done 19,000 miles and has been sat in a garage for three years’.

BL unveiled the Maestro on 1^st March 1983, but while they achieved great publicity from the MG and Vanden Plas with their talking dashboards, most sales were from the cheaper models. The 1.6-litre HLS ranked above the L and came with a five-speed transmission, a rev counter and an LED clock. There was also very “early 1980s” tweed upholstery.

Longbridge promoted the ‘Miracle Maestro’ via an incredibly over-the-top television advertisement that resembled an out-take from Blake’s Seven

The announcer’s script may seem a masterpiece of hyperbole, but BL’s challenges should not be underestimated. As Motor Sport put it:

Make no mistake about it, the Maestro is crucial to the company’s continued progress, for it aims to take sales not only from Ford’s best selling Escort but also from the recently announced Sierra. While the latter might have got off to something of a shaky start (by Ford’s high marketing success standards) there is no denying that playing Ford at its own game is no easy task.

Trying to appeal to both Escort and Sierra buyers was always difficult, and most buyers regarded the Maestro as a competitor to the former. A spokesman from BL’s Austin-Rover division stated it was developed with ‘the fleet user very much in mind’, but the firm could not hope to match Ford’s discounts to the company car market. However, Autocar thought Maestro ‘a very likeable and professional piece of contemporary motor car engineering.’

This was precisely what so many buyers demanded, and by early September 1983, the Maestro became the UK’s best-selling car, albeit for a brief period. Seven months later, Car magazine published a test of the HLS opposed the Escort 1.6GL, the Golf 1.6 GL Mk. II and the Talbot Horizon 1.5 GL. Although not without merit, the last-named was already looking dated, but the Ford and the Volkswagen represented more formidable oppositions.

Fortunately for Austin-Rover dealers, the Golf cost an incredible £830 more than the Maestro – in 1984, you could buy a respectable second-hand Vauxhall Viva for that amount. Car also rated the HLS’s ‘safe and viceless handling’, less road noise and ‘better ride in some circumstances’. What led them to recommend the Escort was its ‘air of quality’ but improved construction, a light facelift and a more potent engine ‘could make the Maestro a clear winner’.

BL dropped the Austin badge in 1987 – it was perceived as too ‘middle-aged’ – and UK production of the Maestro ended in 1994. Twenty-seven years later, Patrick finds his HLS ‘a very easy car to live with - loads of room inside and a big boot to put stuff in.  The 1.6 s - series engine is very smooth and reliable, and it pulls well’.

Above all, cars such as the Bradley HLS evoke memories of a lost world, one of Howard’s Way and Nick Berry’s Every Loser Wins haunting the charts. As Patrick remarks – ‘my dad had them when I was a kid, so they bring back great childhood memories of going on holiday and being sat in the back of a Maestro’.

With Thanks To: Patrick Bradley

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