31 day taxi ride ..................Nash Metropolitan

[auto doug]

A few years ago  I had the opportunity to  restore a Nash Metro, only trick was it had to be done in 31 days!    unheard of in the restoration world!    Well it happened like this.  A well know car guy Speedy Bill Smith owner of the worlds oldest & largest shop shop here in Lincoln, Nebraska wanted to buy this cute little die-cast taxi cab a 60ish Nash metro for his wife Joyce's Birthday, well the little car was not available at that time it had just been press released in a magazine.  So being good friends with Speedy and having done many body & paint projects for him over the years, he called and said "hay Pal I have a little project for you", I need to find and built a Taxi cab for Joyce and I need it done in time for her birthday, that also happen to be the opening day for Americruise 07 here in Lincoln, Neb. I said "sure no problem"  So a little Metro was found in Iowa and the story goes like this.

 

 Get the car to the shop, day one tear it down remove drive line, cut open rust areas chip out loads of bondo, remove interior, trim, mldg, gauges, glass etc. By day four the car is mounted up in the Roller Hoop rotisserie and sent out to get media blasted to remove all rust and do cleanup on the bottom side, rear end is cleaned up as well. During this time the eng & trans is sent back over to Speedway Motors museum staff for a nice clean up and repaint. After media blasting the body we got to work fixing repairing previous repairs and rebuilding crossmembers and many other rusted areas, reworked the body, prepped and primed all in short order, at the time the only workers I had were myself, my wife, father-in-law and a part time school kid we all worked hard and countless hours were spend getting it done. It was a very busy time, we didn't need to do perfect show car quality work, just nice museum quality,  Speedy sent over a few of his techs  to help getting eng back in and install a new wiring harness and get it up and running, every body had a great time on this project.   

 

 Opening day of Americruise 07 and Joyce's Birthday, I pulled the cute little Taxi up to the front doors of the Museum Of American Speed to a very happy Bill & Joyce Smith and many on lookers!  it was a fun, fast project that had many happy times and a lot of smiles, and many more every time people see it now on display in one of the Worlds best Automotive Museums  here in Lincoln, Nebraska.   Just thought some of you might enjoy this fun little restoration story.

 

Doug Kielian

Auto Kraft Body & paint inc.

Lincoln, Nebraska                         

Edited July 8, 2015 by auto doug (see edit history)

[Guest Ben Marc]

This is awesome, i really appreciate the way you make you car! its a worthy experience to read... 
Before that I was only surprised from the read you share but after watching the attachment I complete admire your efforts....! 

[Roger Zimmermann]

Well, in a such short time, I would have been just able to remove the drive train and do some cleaning...But I'm not a professionnal. Anyway, congratulation for that quick job!