When I was fifteen, I had a car.  Trust me, I wasn’t privileged.  Of course my sister complained because she didn’t have one.  Truthfully, not having one wasn’t much worse than the one I had.  Now don’t think I’m ungrateful because nothing could be farther from the truth.  I learned so much from owning that car that I will always be indebted to my parents for giving it to me.  “What kind of car was it?” you ask.  It was a 1962 Nash Metropolitan.  Woo-hoo!

    People ask me, “Don’t you wish you still had it?  Think what it would be worth today.”  No, I don’t wish I still had it.  If it were in mint condition, it would be worth about $250.00.  I feel lucky that the guy that bought it for $75.00 didn’t come back and sue us.  It was fun, but what isn’t when you’re 15?  I had a pup tent that was about the same amount of fun and more portable.

    It was so cold natured that it wouldn’t start if you had a cold drink in you hand when you got in.  Truthfully, below 60 degrees and you would run the battery down trying to crank it.  I actually rigged up a can of starting fluid and a piece of hose that ran from inside the car to the carburetor.  It was a fine piece of British engineering.

    It had a tube type radio which was broken.  I saved up $10.00 and took it to the TV repairman to fix it.  When I got it back and hooked it up, it didn’t last long enough to find a radio station.  Smoke poured out of it and I realized that I should have spent my ten bucks on beef jerky instead.  The brakes were another masterpiece.  My father and I bled, over hauled, bled, replaced, bled and actually made parts for the brakes on a weekly basis.  Did I mention we bled the brakes a lot?  Once, when I turned in our driveway, the brakes completely went out.  I was pumping the pedal like a fiend as I traversed the front yard headed toward the creek.  The only thing that saved me was running one front tire off in a hole I had dug when I was about ten years old.  And to think my father fussed about that hole for five years and in the end, it saved my life.  I liked to dig holes for some reason.  I would dig them all over the yard.  I’d also take the water hose and put it down against the ground and let it bore a hole as far as I could push it.  But I digress.

    It was a sinfully ugly little car, faded yellow and white with a Continental style spare tire.  The window cranks were kind of hit and miss until they finally broke off and you had to raise the window by pulling it up and hold it in place with a wad of paper crammed down between the window and door frame.  I paid $50.00 and had it painted Ford Electric Blue.  I also added a glass pack and shackles to jack up the rear end.  It was pitiful.  I reupholstered it in a beautiful brown Naugahyde and put in some carpet retrieved from the trailer factory garbage.  Then, I added the final touch...an Arthur Fulmer Eight track tape player and some Bass 48 speakers.  Born to be Wild.

    On occasion I look up Metropolitans on the internet.  A lot of Metropolitan Clubs have websites, but I question whether they are car clubs or really support groups.  It doesn’t take a lot of money to own a Metro...it takes a lot of guts.