I was around 5 years old when I first saw one of these. It is an Austin Metropolitan, essentially a Nash Metropolitan but made at BMC’s Longbridge works. I liked it so much that I declared that this was the car I wanted when I grew up.
It never happened. There was a dire shortage of these by 1970, only nine thousand or so ever having being produced and I wanted something that could easily be repaired. Alas I never got my ‘rubber’ car that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a fairground bumper car ride, or maybe even floating in the bath.
It was not to British tastes for sure, and prospective buyers were few. In Britain, we were still obsessed with cars painted in camouflage colours finished off with a coat or two of laquer. The two tone, bright cheery nature of the Metropolitan was in stark contrast to home grown stuff and the dour post WWII countenance of many a Brit.
Performance wise, it could manage 70mph if you believed the blurb, and could manage 27mpg flat out, again if you believed the blurb.
Basically, it was all just too much, but is a collectable these days.
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