>From time to time, other SOLs have related LBC memories.
Here's one of mine. It is true, but I have changed my wife's name to
protect the innocent.
In 1966, for reasons irrelevant here, I needed a cheap car for temporary
use. Being a car nut, I thought it wouldn't hurt if the car also was
interesting. So, for the princely sum of $50, I bought a well-used 1954
Metropolitan convertible. The little jewel was a particularly bilious
chartreuse, with a darker green soft top and black and white upholstery.
In a few months, it was time to sell the Metropolitan. I had done a fair
bit of work on it. The front brake linings no longer floated around in
the drums, unattached to their backings, occasionally getting wedged and
stopping the car. I had put new rings in the engine, after carefully
removing the considerable ridges at the tops of the cylinders with a
half-round file and honing the cylinders with 360 wet/dry sandpaper. And
I had removed a bushel of empty beer cans from the interior (in the auto
trade, filing the ridges and installing new linings qualifies as
"reconditioning," whereas removing the beer cans should be considered
"detailing").
I advertised this little hummer for, if I remember correctly, about $150,
hoping to turn a modest profit on my work. This offer was met with a
thundering silence from the auto-buying public. It was my habit to phone
home before I left school, to ask if my wife Jean needed anything from the
store. For the first few weeks, I asked hopefully if there had been any
calls on the Nash. But as the ad costs approached the original cost of
the car, I gave up asking. Jean was more concerned than I; I actually
rather liked the Nash, and would not have minded keeping it despite its
tendency to heel over in corners like a sailboat tacking into a heavy
wind. She refused to be seen in it.
One evening, as the phone was ringing, my pixie-like sense of humor got
the best of me. I wrapped my handkerchief around the mouthpiece and
when Jane answered, I disguised my voice as well as I could.
Jean: Hello.
Me: Is this the party that advertised the Nash Metropolitan?
Jean: (With barely concealed excitement) Yes, it is.
Me: Is it a convertible, or a coupe?
Jean: A convertible.
Me: Wonderful! And what color is it?
Jean: Well... It is kind of a yellowish green. I guess you would have
to call it chartreuse.
Me: Oh, that's incredible. And you only want $150?
Jean: Yes.
Me: Please, I know you don't know me, but could you promise not to
sell it to anyone else until I can get there with the money?
Jean: I think it will still be here.
Me: And tell me, does it run, or should I arrange to have it towed?
Jean: It runs fine, but do you mean you don't care?
Me: Not really. I guess I should explain, because I suppose my
circumstances are a little odd. You see, my wife and I have
one son, who is the apple of our eye. We have tried and tried
to have another, without success. The doctors say there isn't
any physical cause, so we tried a psychiatrist. He said we should
try and duplicate the conditions under which our son was conceived.
It's embarrassing, but he was conceived in a chartreuse Nash
Metropolitan convertible. So you see, I don't want to drive
it, I just want to park it in the back yard.
Somewhere in the middle of this explanation, Jean began to catch on.
I won't bother relating the minor explosion that followed.
And the Nash? I put all the odds and ends of paint I had together, making
a muddy tan, and painted it. I then had no trouble selling it to a
neighbor who drove it to work for some time without many problems. If
anybody in the St. Louis area has restored a 54 Metropolitan on which the
first two layers of paint were chartreuse and muddy tan, I guess I qualify
as a DPO (dreaded previous owner).
Ray Gibbons
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