The Red Sox car was saved from death at the hands of Yankees fans

Last month, I wrote about a man who restored a 1957 Nash Metropolitan into a roving Red Sox-mobile. He covered it in Red Sox logos, plus a Dunkin Donuts logo for good measure, and painted Boston’s World Series victories on one side. He gave it a giant baseball cap, installed a bat for a shifter and put in home plates for floor mats. The car made it to three World Series, an All-Star Game and Cooperstown.

But Tim Hall, the car’s creator and the owner of a custom golf cart company in Brighton, Colorado, had grown tired of taking care of the car, and was trying to sell it. After years of looking for a buyer with no success, Hall posted an ad for the car on Craigslist in the Bronx -- asking Yankees fans to take it from him and destroy it, ideally in spectacular fashion.

The ad read, in part:

Being our country is a want something for nothing mentality no one has offered to buy this adorable little car. I built it hoping a well-to-do family would adore it and want it, would be for a song, and nobody cares. I am therefore willing to use it in a negative advertisement in New York City collaborating with a television station or radio station allowing people to take strikes at it with a baseball bat or a sledgehammer to raise money to recuperate my investment. Then hang it from a crane 2,000 feet in the air and drop it.

I spoke to Tim Hall at the time, who confirmed he’d do just about anything to get rid of the Metropolitan.

“There’s days I just want to take it to the crusher and say to heck with it,” Hall said. “I’ve been tired of trying to market it. There’s other things to do.”

“So I thought to heck with it, let me see if someone in New York wants to do something big with it, something crazy, since there’s the rivalry. I would do it. I’d hate to do it. I love the little car. But you know -- I want to do something with it and move on with my life.”

Cue Foxborough, Massachusetts, native Paul Martin.

“My sister sent me a copy of your article through Facebook,” Martin told me on Wednesday, “and as a joke said, hey, you should buy this car, because I have a couple of other classic cars.”

“I clicked on his email,” Martin said, “and I said, hey, don’t sell it to some Yankees fan, sell it to me! I’d like the car.”

But someone else had already made Hall an offer for the car, so Hall told Martin he’d have to turn him down. The next day, Hall got the news: the original buyer had fallen through. Hall called Martin back.

“He called me that Monday and said hey, if you’re still interested in the car, the first guy’s wife won’t let him buy it.”

Martin’s wife, Allison, was considerably more enthusiastic.

This month, Hall loaded the car into a trailer and towed it the 1,000 miles from Denver to Spring, Texas, where Martin now runs a roofing company.

“He brought it all the way to me,” Martin said. “And then he took the money and he said, I’m going on vacation. He went to Galveston, South Padre island. He went to have himself some fun.”

Martin has already made the car his own, adding shamrocks alongside the Dunkin Donuts logo and championships to advertise his company, Shamrock Roofing, itself a nod to Martin’s Boston roots.

The Red Sox, too, briefly expressed interest in saving Hall’s car from destruction in the Bronx. A team representative called Hall and floated the idea of putting the car on display at Fenway. The Red Sox opted not to make the purchase, but, says Martin of his acquisition, “the Red Sox were aware of the transaction and approved it.”

In Spring, the car is quickly making an impression.

“We take it out for ice cream,” Martin said. “We love it. And people really react to it.”

“They go crazy over the horn especially,” added Allison Martin of the whimsical, multi-tone horn.

This spring, Tim Hall’s Red Sox car -- that adorable little car that no one wanted -- will ride in Houston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.