The combination of a [1111]metacyclophane blocked in 1,3-alternate conformation and bearing four imidazole units with MX2(M = Co, Cu, Zn and Hg; X = Cl or Br) complexes leads to the formation of a series of analogous neutral metallamacrotricycles. In all cases, the structure of the binuclear complexes has been studied by X-ray diffraction methods on single crystals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]