Drew,
I put a flathead V8 Ford engine in a metro, back in '58.........Ruined it! I think we threw the good-running original engine in the dump! They had a very nice little BMC four-banger in 'em. Tough as nails. A 4, or 5-speed tranny would have really livened a Metro up, but they only had 3-speed transmissions, if i remember right.
They were unibody, prone to rust, tho......
We used to think of them as kind of a "girly" car.
I'm going to look at a '53 Jeep pickup tomorrow.
