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Before you read below, new update as of 11/11/11. Returned from the Hilton Head Concours d'Elegnace show a few days ago where we were stunned and honored to have the Met earn a Palmetto award in the micro car class. She now joins here 2 big brothers as a Palmetto award winner at HH. I have had people come up to me at HH and say "I have been doing this for years and have yet to win!!" Go to the show page for more pictures of her on the showfield. As originally built the car was black and white but it had been changed to pink and white and used in support of breast cancer fund raising in the northwest. The car had tons of pin stripping outside as well as inside, including the prior owners name in painted pin strip on the outside drivers fender. With that and the paint's ton of orange peel, lots of run, holes and a rust spot there was not quesiton the paint needed lots of help. I selected a body shop based on the recommendation of the upholstery shop we had chosen and, to my dismay, based on price. They did do a good job in welding up all the extra holes the car had in it frm things like fender skirts and so forth. One good thing that was discovered is that the car had no bondo at all; she was entirely restored with metal. The body shop did a so-so paint job on her and when picked up had a lot of shop dust so there are lots of errors I did not see at the time. From there it went to the upholstery shop we had chosen but it sat for over 5 weeks with nothing being done except a few paint chips put into her from being moved around. During this time I located a restoration shop very close to my home, they did complete work including custom upholstery. And they had recently done a Metropolitan as well, the owner pulled out a notebook with all the receipts from that job. The cars in his shop undergoing work looked good, he told a good story also. I had contracted with them to do the upholstery and also pull the engine so I could work on the engine bay. They were to install all trim, glass, etc. Everything for one price! Well it turned out they did not know jack sh%t about Metropolitans and after I picked up the car and started to get into it I had to spend a lot of time fixing and undoing things that they did to her. They put on the new exhaust system wrong, I had to pay a shop to fix that. They installed the shifter backwards, the shift linkage backwards. When they installed the new gas tank they took off the ground wire to the sending unit and did not re-use it when the new tank went it, so the gauge did not work until I dropped the tank and fixed that. Some wiring was backwards, and on and on. There are some things they did I can never get right without pouring more money into her which we will not do. She was built to drive and to work at fund raising and that is what she will do. All the chrome and stainless trim had to be worked on to try to get a decent shine. The interior was done to mirror the 1960 Metropolitan show car, The Fifth Avenue which was also a pink and white car. This theme fit perfectly for her new role in helping fund raising for breast cancer research As the car was restored for the purpose of aiding fund raising for breast cancer research I chose to install a flying lady hood ornament, this was a dealer offered additon for the Met back in the time they were sold. The Nash Metropolitan is a car that was sold, initially only in the United States and Canada, from 1954–1962. It conforms to two classes of vehicle, economy car and subcompact car. In today’s terminology the Metropolitan is a “subcompact”, but this category had not yet come into use when the car was made. The Metropolitan was also sold as a Hudson when Nash and Hudson merged in 1954 to form the American Motors Corporation (AMC), and later as a stand alone marque during the Rambler years, as well as in the United Kingdom and other markets.
After attending several national shows with me my wife decided that she wanted her own “classic car” and it should still be in the AMC family and not a muscle car. So, what can be more non-muscle car and still an AMC then........
A 1960 Nash Metropolitan, our newest addtion to our AMC family.
These pictures are from the for sale add of the car, they look pretty good right??
Well as I should have learned with the Javelin pictures are not always what they seem to be...... The seller being an insurance agency owner knew how to take pictures from the correct angle as not to disclose too much information, even opening the driver door to hide that her name had been painted on the driver side fender!!
Met was picked up by an auto transport company on 10/20/10 in Seattle, WA. Picture taken by prior owner
.................and as it rolled off the delivery truck
.........I realized I fumbled one, bought the car sight un-seen and while it looked good in pictures the paint had major issues, the interior was in bad condtion, the under carriage was a mess and the engine bay was sad also. Mistake #1
If you are reading this let me say DO NOT BUY A CAR SIGHT UNSEEN!!!
Mistake #2:
Mistake #3:
On transport from body shop to upholstery shop
Ms. Met as she sat at the upholstery shop all alone for over 5 weeks with no work being done
She even looks sad sitting in this dark room with no attention being paid to her
Small things like the white wall tires needed help. While the tires overall were in good condtion the white walls had seen rough use, lots of scraps and scuffs that cannot be cleaned off. Without any funds for new tires a solution had to be found! I purchased white wall paint off of the internet and a applied it to each tire, they look pretty good for a $25 investment.
I also spent two weeks on my back trying to detail the undercarriage the best I could, not having a lift sucks as the best I could do was a jack and jackstands
Finally in September 2011 she rolled out of the garage for her first peek at sunshine and her first wash since being purchased in October, 2010
One addtional item I have taken care of is a complete new wire harness from Metropolitan Restoration Services. I tried to avoid it as they cost almost $400 but in the long run it was worth it, but in function and looks. Here is the engine bay with new new harness in place, note the colored cloth covered wires that would have been correct when it left the factory in England in late 1959.
