Most Adorable Car Ever Built? - Nash Metropolitan | The Bad Blonde Car History

We are going to be talking about a small car that you can’t look at without your heart growing 2x bigger, a car that who’s manufacturer took a leap of faith to veer from the norm of behemoth vehicles to create mini commuter, and one of the few cars that can make Pepto pink look good, if you haven’t already guessed it we are going to be talking about the Nash Metropolitan.

Most of the 1950s was not a known for small cars, this was an era of bigger-is-better and many car manufacturers were pumping out goliaths from their production line. So it was quite a wild hair when smaller carmaker Nash Motor Company decided to dive into the economy/small car market.

For example contemporary cars of the day were the likes of time were the Chrysler Crown Imperial (which happens to be the widest car ever produced), Hudson Hornet, giant Cadillacs, and more..

Nash Motor Company began production in lovable commuter in 1953, six years before the very successful Mini was introduced. Interesting that one succeeded tremendously and the other didn’t?

Based on the NXI (Nash Experimental International) a concept car penned by designer William J. Flajole  for Nash-Kelvinator. You see, William had his own design company and had predicted that the Post-WWII consumer market would be interested in smaller cars. He had designed the NXI and proposed it to the larger automakers of the day. They all declined but Nash saw the opportunity in it.

What and for who was it designed? Ideally this little go-about-car was designed as the second car in a two car family. Considered a commuter/shopping car. In appearance, it looked sort of like a miniature Nash with it’s wheelbase being shorter than a VW Beetle.

So Nash didn’t 100% jump in, they were smart and conducted a few “surviews” survey-previews to gauge whether the American market would purchase something so small. This was a burgeoning market at the time, Post WWII was beginning to see a market for ‘personal use’ cars. Specifically, like already mentioned, a second car for a household or economical commuter.

The Metro was the first post-war American vehicle that was marketed specifically to women.  The first spokesperson for the car was the 1954 Miss America.

A few of the marketing slogans featured in brochures: “America's entirely new kind of car" (1955), "Luxury in Miniature" (1959), and "crafted for personal transportation" (1960)”

It was said by one auto critic Floyd Clymer… "it may well be that Nash has started a new trend in American motoring. Perhaps the public is now getting ready to accept a small car". Floyd also took a Metro up Pikes Peak.

Initially named the “NKI Custom”, just two months before it’s public release the it would be dubbed the “Metropolitan”..

Though in theory the US market wanted an economy car, in action the cars sold in small numbers.

A unique thing about the Metro is that it was 100% US designed BUT it was manufactured in the UK by Austin Motor Company and then shipped back over to be sold in the states.

Now why does that make sense? Nash was not tooled or prepared to manufacture a small car but you know who was? Austin founded in 1905 by Herbert Austin. They had a long old history of making small cars. The Austin seven for example.

Austin and the Austin seven has many ties in the automotive industry.

Side note, they had already merged and became a part of BMC in 1952..

Soon Nash-Kelvinator would merge with Hudson, and would be known as AMC, American Motors Corporation and the car would be marketed as a Hudson Metropolitan in 1955. That merge COULD have also included Packard and Studebaker but that didn’t happen.

Over the course of 8 years, you would see four series of the Metro, Series I, II, III, and IV, not a whole lot changed with the series I and II.

But with the series III you would see the introduction of the well known two-tone finish with the stainless steel sweep-spears on the sides along with a redesign of the grille and removal of the hood-scoop. The series III are also known as the Metropolitan 1500.

Soon in 1957, AMC declared that they would be dropping the Nash and Hudson brand names, making the Metropolitan to stand on it’s own under the Metropolitan Name.

In 1959 the series IV debuted and it would be the Metro’s best selling year at 22k unites..

It was at this point that I dove into a rabbit hole.. At one point, a metro was modified by industrial designer Richard Arbib to create a thing called the Astra-Gnome a “Time and Space Car” with this car which was as concept heavily influenced by space travel, within this car that “was never intended for production” was a celestial time-zone clock permitting actual flight-type navigation.”

AMC paid the guy to create it and it did generate a lot of media…

At one point, right hand drive models were marketing to US Police Departments specifically for parking enforcement.

The unique styling and looks attracted an eclectic ownership of the Metro including; Paul Newman, Jimmy Buffet, Elvis Presley, and Steve Jobs.

Digression here, Last week I did a video on the history of De Tomaso. Elvis Presley famously got frustrated with his bright yellow De Tomaso Pantera and shot it repeatedly. Not smooth.

Eventually, the Big Three would catch up and introduce their own compact models. That along with their own competing Rambler American persuaded AMC to discontinue the lovable small car.  A consumer could purchase the five-seater Rambler for about $100 more. The last Metropolitan rolled off the Fisher and & Ludlow production plant in April 1961 and embarked to US.