Apr 28, 2008

Nash Metropolitan the 1950’s sub-compact car

The Nash Metropolitan was a cute sub-compact car made for Nash Kelvinator by Austin in Birmingham, England from 1954 to 1961.

The lower picture shows an artists painting of the Metropolitan rendered for a magazine advertisement. The artist painted the driver to a smaller scale so the car would appear larger.

The diminutive Metropolitan was smaller than the Volkswagen beetle. The Metropolitan had a wheelbase of only 85-inches. It was powered by a 1.2 liter 4 cylinder engine driving the rear wheels through a 3-speed manual transmission

The cute little Metropolitan was available in 2-door hardtop and 2-door convertible models.

Nash originally intended to name this car NKI Custom (NKI - Nash Kelvinator International) before they settled on Metropolitan.

This little “baby Nash” was often referred to as the tiny car with a long name.

The Nash nameplate was removed from the Metropolitan in 1958 when American Motors decided to drop both the Nash and Hudson names.