spans of highways in comfort. The small cars that developed
in Europe were really more suited to the shorter distances and smaller
roads of the countries across the Atlantic.
Chairman of Nash-Kelvinator, George W. Mason. In the late
1940’s Nash began researching different types of more personal vehicles
for local use. The concept was to see if there was a market and an
interest for small personal or secondary vehicles as opposed to the massive
steel that was strolling the roadways and parking lots at the time.
and Austin Motor Company, LTD of England became the producer of
the new automobile. The decision to produce the car overseas and import
the finished product was made for cost purposes. Steel supplies were
hard to obtain in the United States. Plus, tooling costs and Union
wages were extremely high as well. Austin began building the NKI Custom
in October of 1953 and the cars became available in the United States by
Spring of 1954.
two tone exterior. Mechanically the Metropolitan received
a new engine and Transmission. The engine was the reliable Austin
A-50 with greater displacement than the earlier 1200 cc engine, and more
power. 
The big dilemma with this show is that one focal point is a 1940's/50's
car which the Greasers sing about, dance around etc... The car is
in two major scenes in the show. I work hard to make our productions
as professional as possible so the search began for a car to use on stage
(I could not figure out how to build anything that I would find acceptable.)
After some digging on the internet I found a fellow in NJ renting
a converted Nash Metropolitan. We put in a reservation and the car
arrived a week before the show.
looking, but my gut said it was solid. I clicked "Buy It Now!"
for $990.00 and bought the car. I received an email the following
day from the owner, Kelley Young, about what a nice surprise it was to wake
up and see the car had sold. We chatted back and forth about what
I was going to do with the car and it turned out that Kelley had worked in
props for the film industry. This just added to my gut feeling that
this all was a good idea.
From now on I will use a different shipper for cars. The
little Met showed up on the leading lip of a flatbed that also carried
a huge back hoe. I knew the car was loaded on the truck from a rollback
tow truck, so I asked the Ukrainian truck driver how we were supposed to
remove the car. He replied,"you have forklift!" I said I had
no such thing. Rather frustrated at what should have been a simple
job I went home, picked up two huge wooden ramps I had made years ago, and
brought them back so we could roll the car off the trailer. What a
pain in the neck! 
cushions, twigs, and lord knows what else. At one point
I got the bad idea to wash and scrub the interior. This only saturated
dried urine and created a horrible stench in my driveway. I wanted
to make sure the car was clean before taking it into school.
nice thing about working on a car from California is that 95% of the
bolts unscrew like they were put in yesterday. This makes all the
money I spent on shipping worth it!
Wilderness provides all the parts, and has adapter plates ready
drilled for VW Beetles, things get a little different when doing a car
that has not been done before. The standard adaptor plate that Wilderness
has should fit any car. This heavy duty adaptor fits the Met transmission
fine and only required the marking and drilling of holes.
clutch shaft using a carbide blade on a Milwaukee Sawzall (this took
around half an hour). I also designed with student assistance the
mounting bracket which holds up the transmission in absence of the engine.
I made the bracket out of 2" angle iron sections and smaller angled
pieces. 