Our house is a very, very, very fine mouse: The Truly Nolen mouse building of Pompano Beach, Florida

Drivers on busy I-95 South get to see this awesome sight!

 How can you kill something so cute, Truly?

 The truly awesome Truly Nolen limousine.

We were lucky enough to spot a Truly Nolen classic Nash Metropolitan in Tucson, Arizona. Note the Muffler Man in the background. Score! Read about it here.

If you're going to be in the business of killing household pests, it pays to have a sense of humor. At least it does if you're the Truly Nolen company. They've been around since the 1930s and have employed many whimsical promotional devices over the years. In the 1950s, they began using a fleet of classic cars as moving billboards emblazoned with their company name. This led to a red VW bus made to look like a giant ant, which was the forerunner of today's Truly Nolen yellow mouse car — VW bugs and Toyota Yarises in lemony hues and appointed with round mouse ears, long black mouse tails and cute faces painted on their fronts. They've even got a mouse limousine (lim-mouse-sine?) that makes visits to schools. Their Pompano Beach, Florida headquarters building has taken the mouse concept even further. It's the same bright yellow, with a red mouse nose and whiskers attached to the corner and beneath two round black windows resembling their trademark mouse ears. And it can be seen quite clearly from busy Interstate 95 south. Marketing brilliance.

And if you're wondering about the name, Truly Nolen is a person. Truly Wheatfield Nolen was the founder of the company, and the family has kept the Truly name going for three generations. Other names in the family are Really Nolen, and Sincere Leigh Nolen (I kid you not — it's on their website). Keep up the eccentricity, Truly Nolen. We dig you, truly.

Yours Truly: Tucson, Arizona's Truly Nolen Nash Metropolitan

Note the muffler man and cool Leo's Auto Supply sign in the background: a retro roadside trifecta.

I've done a few posts about Tucson, Arizona's awesomely retro North Stone Avenue, and one more treasure to be encountered on this boulevard of dreams is the Truly Nolen Nash Metropolitan parked near the corner of Glenn Street in front of Don's Hot Rod Shop. Having never been to this region before, the name Truly Nolen was a mystery to us as we kept encountering it painted on the sides of classic old cars throughout the area. Was it a car dealership? A politician? And what was so true about this Nolen, anyway? Well, it turns out Truly Nolen is a pest control company, and a pretty big one at that. They use personalized classic cars as a promotional device. They also have a fleet of yellow VW Beetles bedecked with large mouse ears to simulate vermin.

You don't realize how small a Nash Metropolitan is until you're standing next to one. It's not much bigger than today's new-fangled Smart Cars but it's much more stylish. You half-expect to see a cartoon dog driving this car down the street, or a dozen circus clowns pile out of it. I'd love to have one of these in my driveway but I'm not sure I'd want to commute in one during rush hour on I-95.

And it turns out Truly Nolen is named after its founder, Truly Wheatfiled Nolen, who started the company in 1938. The company has 83 locations and 100 franchises in 41 foreign countries (thank you, wikipedia) and is still family run today.

And as an incredible retro-tastic bonus, there's a muffler man and a cool old neon sign all within eyeshot of the Nash. Truly incredible.