Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I’ve always loved the Nash Metropolitan automobiles. For today’s featured photograph, Mary and I saw this particular car when driving home from Evergreen, Colorado where we had gone to friend’s house to look at an MG B he was selling. (No, we didn’t buy it, good sense prevailed.) On the way home, I saw this Nash Metropolitan with a police bubble on top parked on the side of the road and knew I had to stop and photograph it.
How I made this shot: At the time I made this photograph, my favorite point-and-shoot camera was the Konica-Minolta X1, one of the coolest little cameras anybody ever built. You can read my take on its equally interesting sibling, the Konica-Minolta DiMage Xt, here. Exposure was 1/1250 sec at f/7.1 and ISO 50. Yes, that great little camera had that low of an ISO setting. The photograph was opened in Photoshop and converted to monochrome using Exposure Software‘s Exposure plug-in.
The Automobile
The Nash Metropolitan was a compact American automobile that was sold from 1953 to 1961. It was produced in two body styles: The car was available either as a hardtop or a cute-as-the-dickens convertible. Both models came with a few standard features that were optional on most cars of the era, including a map light, electric windshield wipers, cigarette lighter and even a continental-style rear-mounted spare tire.
In his Mechanix Illustrated review, the legendary automotive writer Tom McCahill said this about the Metropolitan, “It is not a sports car by the weirdest torturing of the imagination but it is a fleet, sporty little bucket which should prove just what the doctor ordered for a second car, to be used either for a trip to the movies or for a fast run to a penicillin festival.”
When Nash and Hudson merged in 1954 to form American Motors, the Metropolitan was also sold as a Hudson, although I’ve seen photographs of this Hudson but have never seen one of those particular versions in person. (Would love to.) During American Motors’ Rambler years, the Metropolitan was a standalone marque. Trivia: During the early 50’s, many Nash Statesman Super Sedan’s were used as police cars but I don’t think this little Metro would make the cut.
Because I like funky, offbeat and unloved cars, I’ve always loved these little automobiles but I have a feeling that Mary would hate it; that’s just a guess though.
My book Creative Digital Monochrome Effects is available from Amazon with new copies at $11.46 with used copies starting at a little more than six bucks, as I write this. There’s no Kindle version available, sorry.