(first posted 1/24/2014. This coming week we’re going to be saluting AMC in a series of reruns)
Lots of companies can claim some small connection to the late American Motors Corporation, but there is really only one company whose identity is virtually inseparable from that of AMC. That company would be Nash. This 1953 version would be the final year of an independent Nash before the creation of AMC in early 1954. But this car (and its smaller brother, the Nash Rambler) would form the foundation which supported AMC for much of the rest of its life.
Image source: Chicagoautoshow.com
In 1908, a man named Charlie Nash had been made President of the Buick Motor Company by William Durant. When Durant lost control of GM in 1910, Nash was asked to take over. Unfortunately, when Durant regained control of GM in 1916, Nash was out, and vowed that he was going to work for himself this time. He found a little company called the Thomas B. Jeffrey Company, whose owner was looking to sell. It should be noted that Jeffrey’s first car in 1902 was called the Rambler. Nash bought the Jeffrey company, and lured some GM talent into going with him. The following year, Nash renamed the Kenosha, Wisconsin auto manufacturer after himself.
Image source: oldcaradvertising.com
Nash Motors became known as the place to go for a good, solid middle-class car. Nashes didn’t really excel at any one thing, but also had no major vices, and were a good value besides. The company was an early adopter of overhead valve engines and, in the 1930s, pioneered both the modern fresh air heating system and also what is perhaps Nash’s most famous legacy – seats that folded down into a bed.
Image source: Kenoshaday.com
One of Charlie Nash’s best calls was choosing George Mason, chairman of the appliance manufacturer, Kelvinator Corporation, to take over leadership of the company upon Nash’s retirement. Mason agreed, provided that Kelvinator came along as part of the deal. The result was the creation of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation in 1936, with Mason at the controls. Mason was widely considered to posses two traits necessary for long term success (and which are not all that often found in the same person): he was not only a solid manager, but a visionary as well.
Mason maintained Nash as a sound, profitable car company, but eventually came to the conclusion that N-K was not cut out for long term success in the cutthroat world of auto manufacturing. Soon after World War II, Mason envisioned a four-way tie-up of Nash, Hudson, Studebaker and Packard. This combination, Mason believed, could trade blows with the Detroit Big Three as an equal.
Hudson’s A. E. Barit celebrates the birth of American Motors with Nash’s George Mason and George Romney. Image source: inforum.com
Mason eventually succeeded in getting Hudson on board in 1954, in what he hoped was a first step, thus giving birth to American Motors. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as it turned out) Mason was unable to sell Studebaker and Packard on the wisdom of the combine before his untimely death in late 1954. Most sources indicate that George Romney, who succeeded Mason, had no interest in working with James Nance of Studebaker-Packard–and that was the end of that. It is curious that Kaiser-Willys, the only company left out of Mason’s plan, possessed the only product line that would grow and prosper over the long haul. Had AMC not bought Kaiser Jeep in 1970, the company would surely have succumbed to the same fatal strain of Independent-itis that had claimed every other smaller car company.
Image source: cartype.com
While visions of American Motors were dancing around in Mason’s fertile brain, he had a car company to run, and did so with some success. The 1949-51 Nash Airflyte would be the company’s big postwar bet, and would turn out to be a pretty successful one (CC here). In fact, the Airflyte (or bathtub Nash, as it was more commonly called) gave Nash its three best production years in history to that point in time (up to 205,000 units in 1951).
Image source: Oldcarbrochures.org
For its second postwar act, Nash would follow its hit Airflyte in 1952 with the… Golden Airflyte, to commemorate the company’s fiftieth anniversary (at least after tacking on the years of the Jeffrey Company). The Golden Airflyte was vintage Nash, appearing to be an all-new car, yet having not all that much to distinguish it from earlier models. The Golden Airflyte would retain the unit construction which Nash had popularized with the 1941 Nash 600 (1948 model here). To give the big solid new Nash a little style, Pininfarina was hired to do the design work. At least according to the advertising.
Image source: macsmotorcitygarage.com
In actuality, Pininfarina’s idea probably looked something more like this 1951 proposal…
Nash Continental prototype. Image source: Hemmings.com
…instead of this. Gotta make it look like a Nash, don’cha know. That became Ed Anderson’s job in the Nash styling studios–to take that crazy, exotic Eye-Talian number and turn it into something that conservative midwestern Americans would buy. At least the thin aluminum door uppers made the cut. Actually, those looked quite modern for 1952 and undoubtedly helped this basic body to age relatively gracefully through its final 1957 iteration. In sum, there is more of Ed Anderson’s Nash Continental prototype in this car than there is Pininfarina.
Oh well, he was being paid handsomely for the use of the name, and there were at least a few exotic lines on the car.
And that hood ornament? The one part of the car that looks unabashedly European was was designed neither by Pininfarina nor by Nash. Instead, it was designed by pinup artist George Petty, known for his Petty Girls in Esquire magazine and elsewhere. This 1953 version is one of several that he designed for Nash after World War II. Unsurprisingly, these Petty-designed flying ladies last adorned the 1955 models, and did not make it any further under George Romney’s management.
Mechanically, the 1952-54 Nash would retain the same prewar-era powerplants as earlier cars. The lower-priced Statesman would continue with a flathead six (called the Powerflyte) that in 1953 displaced 195.6 cubic inches (3.2 L) and put out 100 horsepower. The more expensive Ambassador partially justified its higher price by an overhead valve six (called the Jetfire) that displaced 252.6 cubes (4.1 L) and churned out a firebreathing 120 horses. Both lines were offered with a three speed stick, with or without overdrive, and an optional Dual Range Hydramatic sourced from General Motors. It is interesting that while Buick was unwilling to combine the blunt shifting of the early Hydramatic with its torque tube drive, Nash seems to have made the pairing work.
The Golden Airflyte did get a new front suspension system in which old-fashioned kingpins were replaced by not quite as old-fashioned trunnions. Yes, unit construction, six old cylinders, a torque tube and trunnion suspensions – is anyone here still wondering where AMC’s 1960s Ramblers came from?
Unfortunately, the Golden Airflyte did not do nearly as well as its predecessor. Even including the smaller Rambler, Nash production was a respectable 154,000 units for 1952, then dropped to 122,000 and 91,000 for each of the following two years. While it is tempting to say that this car’s styling was becoming quite an artifact by 1954, the truth is that all of the independents were suffering steep sales declines by then. Between Ford and Chevrolet’s war for market share and the beautiful new designs that were pouring rapidly into the showrooms of the Big Three, the poor old Nash, good as it was, was being left behind.
Image source: Oldcaradvertising.com
Five years after this car was built, there would no longer be a Nash automobile. George Romney’s vision for the future of American Motors could scarcely have been more different from Mason’s. Instead of bulking up to take on the big guys, AMC under Romney would trim down and concentrate on the niche for a quality smaller car like the Rambler. Within a couple of years after the merger, almost all traces of Hudson had pretty much evaporated, save some little plastic nameplates that adorned slightly re-trimmed Nash models.
Aside from its rarity today, this odd-looking car is significant for at least two reasons that I can think of. First, this was the last new design for Nash. This car would not see a replacement and Charlie Nash’s long-serving namesake would disappear after 1957. More importantly, this car represents the foundation of American Motors. Although this particular platform would prove to be a dead-end, its mechanical underpinnings would all either supply or influence almost every new car introduced by AMC until well into the 1960s. The unit body, torque tube, Weather Eye, fold-down seats and even the Kenosha headquarters would soldier on for quite a number of years. It is not hard to look at this Nash, dressed in black, and hear the voice of James Earl Jones saying “AMC–I am your father.”
This has always been such a memorable design – likely due to the skirts over the front wheels. It’s kinship to the ’60s Ramblers is evident.
Ford and Chevrolet’s price war wreaked a lot of havoc on the independents; unfortunate, as the little guys certainly had some strong points in their favor.
Thanks for the précis, I’ve heard about Mason but never had a good overview.
Pinin Farina did a 1952 Nash Starlight fastback and 3box styling study based on the bathtub featuring grille and lights as per the 1953; except the headlights were lower due to the fenders. It looks as though these were grafted onto Anderson’s body. The PF you’ve shown is the 1955 Nash Ambassador with a delicious Florida Line.
The black and red car in the car show photos is not a 1955 Ambassador – it is actually a 1953 Statesmas Super – as the lower left fender shows. I know this car very well, as we traveled from L.A. to Chicago in July 1953 to pick up our new two-tone (yellow and gold) Statesman Super at the Kenosha factory. We drove that flathead six 100 hp with overdrive back home to California that summer, and it was a trip I’ll never forget.
I think Don was referring to the Pinin Farina prototype photo and how some of it translated to the 55 Ambassador. Yes, the subject car is as you say.
I wonder, if you put one on a hoist next to a 60’s Rambler would it look the same?
No. It was a much larger car, and if anything the styling had the misfortune of having this large, nicely styled but ponderous body on insanely small, thin tyres. I saw one in the local strip mall parking lot last summer, and, being used to modern tyres with a fair bit of width to them, had forgotten how comical the combination looks to modern eyes.
The Rambler (later American), using roughly the same size tyres on a smaller body looks proportionally better to modern eyes.
Superbly written and extremely well told, this is the kind of stuff that makes Curbside Classic one of the finest sites online regarding automobiles.
VERY nice write-up.
Having studied the postwar car market from the time I was a teenager (early ’60’s), I find it fascinating how the understanding of the market has changed over the decades.
Back then, the usual presentation of the Independent 7 (Nash, Hudson, Studebaker, Packard, Kaiser, Frasier, Willys) was usually pretty uniform and simple: Exciting alternatives to the Big 3 brought down by market change and an inability to adapt.
Yet, over the decades that description has radically changed to:
Nash – Solid, successful, but too small to compete with the Big 3. Had the only right idea, but its competitors weren’t smart enough to see it. Still managed to be hurt by not following GM in styling.
Hudson – Solid, but worked themselves into a dead end by designing a car that couldn’t be adapted to what the market later wanted. Compounded that error by wasting what money they had left on a car that nobody wanted. I often wonder what they could have done if they had just implemented the simple though of, “What if GM etc., is the way forward? What can we do to follow?”
Studebaker – Solid, probably in better shape than Nash at war’s end. Forward thinking in design that was actually accepted by the public, but squandered it thru pathetic labor relations, an almost complete lack of cost control, and bad management decisions. Not to mention an unwillingness to look at reality as the place was falling apart around them.
Packard – Healthy but already making bad management decisions regarding product before the war. The rot was there in 1946, but didn’t become noticeable until three years later. Add in another three years and things were getting desperate. A classic case in how not to manage a brand. And how not to market a product.
Kaiser/Frasier – Weak to begin with. Under-engineered with a drive train that should have been retired when was was declared. Compounded by the unrealistic side of management forcing out the people who actually had a clue. Given what they turned out, they probably shouldn’t have bothered. If they proved anything it was: a. Just how desperate for cars people were between 1946-48, and, b. Just what it cost to jump into the car business.
Willys – The original niche marketer. Any attempts at getting back into automobiles was a complete waste of money. Successful enough at what they did, however, that they were constantly interesting to someone else.
Very good synopsis. Really, having thought about this car quite a bit during AMC week here, I have begun wondering just how things would have been any different if Hudson had simply gone out of business and there had been no merger, thus no AMC. I suspect that nothing would have been different other than the names on the cars, and we would all be making fun of how behind the times those Nashes of the 1970s were.
AMC did get a lot of mileage out of the Hudson dealer network. One of the biggest problems facing the independents in the 1950s was the quality and scarcity of their dealers. Giving them Ramblers to sell in 1955 probably boosted Rambler sales, while keeping the Hudson dealers in business.
Ditto, great writeup – on a great piece.
Had me thinking about my current “What if” – What if Chrysler bought Packard in the late 40s? They hadn’t committed to launching Imperial yet, and they would’ve picked up Utica as well, saving money vs. building Chelsea from scratch. East Grand wouldn’t have phased a company operating Highland Park, Jefferson and Dodge Main, but to pick up on another comment stream, what if they then picked up Willow Run from K-W and moved Packard production there along with whatever else they surely had to fill the space.
Figure you keep the ’51Reinhart design but badge in a Hemi, run Ultramatic on Packards and Chryslers (maybe DeSoto, too) until Torque-Flite is ready. Do a better job with the ’53-4 facelift, Pick up Briggs, pair Chrysler and Packard in the field and set Plymouth on its own, and then roll out Ex’s ’55 Imperial as a Packard – the upper curve of those split grilles could easily hold Packard’s ox-yoke curls.
What if Chrysler bought Packard in the late 40s?
Interesting possibility, if the government didn’t blow the anti-trust whistle on one of the big three buying another automaker.
and they would’ve picked up Utica as well, saving money vs. building Chelsea from scratch.
The Utica proving ground was tiny, crammed between 22 and 23 Mile Rd, with zero security. Looks like anyone could stand on the public roads and see inside. You can still see the outline of it on the satellite pic on Google Maps. All the special sections of roads, different types of paving and hills, were crammed down in the SW corner of the property by the intersection of 22 Mile and Mound, because there used to be an airplane runway in the infield of the high speed track, as Packard was very active in aircraft engines in the twenties.
The Packard proving grounds in Utica were built in 1927. If you look at an early aerial photo of East Grand, you can see an oval track right at the north end of the plant. In the late thirties, Packard leased access to the Utica track to Cadillac as GM had not yet built it’s proving ground in Milford. During the war, Packard leased the track to Chrysler for testing tanks. One of the surviving buildings at the preserved part of the facility is known as the Chrysler garage as it dates from that era, while the aircraft hanger has been moved from it’s original location at the north end of the infield, to the preserved section.
While Chrysler had no test track prior to building in Chelsea in 54, Utica would have been no more than an inadequate stop-gap until Chelsea was built.
East Grand wouldn’t have phased a company operating Highland Park, Jefferson and Dodge Main,
And the 1920s vintage former Graham Paige plant on W Warren that Chrysler was building DeSotos in in the mid 50s, and, later, Imperials.
Early pic of Packard East Grand, with oval track visible near top of pic.
Great write-up, thanks for “connecting the dots” as to how this all came together. I knew the bits, but never knew how they became the whole.
Darth Rambler? 😉
As others have said, wonderful post. Thank you.
The ’52 Golden Airflyte might have done much better just opening up the front fender around the wheel. One has to imagine that turning circle and some handling characteristics were compromised for the look, and it was time to move forward. Maybe tweak the front end for a fresher look. With its distinctive greenhouse and rear quarters it still would have been very much a Nash.
The first post war cars were very interesting as there were so many companies looking for what the new post war look would be. GM became the obvious leader, but also got away with some look alike cars across the divisions that came and went during the ’50s.
Romney gets credit for some good decisions. Consolidating to the Rambler name instead of trying to turn all the names into a mirror of the GM five was really the only way to go.
Interesting, Ford and GM followed the Romney logic almost exactly fifty years later during the recession. Ironically, the surviving elements of the company he headed are associated with a company that has ADDED two marques to to the American scene during the same time. History does repeat itself.
how could you even make a right turn with those skirted front wheels?!
These cars had a very narrow track in relation to their overall width. Plus, they had quite a wide turning radius. I am inclined to agree with Dave B that this single styling feature probably hampered the car in the marketplace more than anything else. The skirted wheels were understandable in the original Airflyte, but the era for that kind of a look was long gone by 1952. I think that Pininfarina would have agreed. 🙂
When AMC brought back the smaller Rambler or whatever it was called they opened up the front and rear wheel openings. Yes, it should have been done around 1952. Those kind of mostly covered wheels were typical in drawings of future cars in the 1940’s, and didn’t pan out. Nash should have smelled the coffee.
This is always the first thought in my head when I see pictures of these! “Won’t the tires hit the body when you turn?????
That chrome line almost makes it look as though the body is a hovercraft…not really connected to those wheels.
Exactly right, rather like this.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….did they have Nashes?
“These are not the fender skirts you’re looking for…”
😉
Those fender skirts might make a comeback someday. They would be a good way to hide structural stiffening to address the new small-offset collision tests. Who needs a turning radius, anyway? ;>
The worlds biggest Metropolitan!
No, Pininfarina must not have been happy about how this came out, except for the money, perhaps. It’s the only example I know of where this kind of thing happened; everyone else in Europe was quite happy to build his cars as designed by him. And then they didn’t put his name or face on their ads either, Very American; more about the cult of celebrity rather than actual good taste.
These cars, and the follow-up Nashes from ’55-’57, were very rare on the ground during my time in Iowa after 1960. They were oddities, just like the step down Hudsons. I was quite attracted to the Hudsons, but not the Nashes. They looked pretty stupid and goofy in the early 60s.
Ironically, when I moved back to Iowa City in 1971, one of my friends had scored an immaculate ’55 big Nash; very flamboyant in an intense shade of green with yellow. Wow! It was now infinitely cool! It was such a great car to tool around town in, or out in the country. All the hippie kids approved; the perfect anti-Road Runner.
Cars like that Nash could be picked up for a song in the early 70s, and in perfect condition too.
Thanks for the fine write-up, and some happy Nash memories.
Big Metropolitan, indeed. Actually, this car’s rotund shape over its dainty little inset wheels always reminded me of something else.
Ha! Yes, that’s perfect.
JPC, you’re killing me. Great write-up, too.
Proud family with their dainty hippo in background.
1954 Nash ‘Canadian Statesman’
New Brunswick, Canada, 1957.
Sharps eyes will see not a ’55/’56 Ford in the background, but a Meteor.
This is a very good picture that shows how narrow the track was on these cars and why the tires didn’t rub when turning
HowStuffWorks has a whole page on the PininFarina / in-house dynamic that led to the ’52 Nash (link). Excerpts:
Designer William Reddig expected Farina’s car would be a visual knockout. Reddig was already familiar with Farina’s skill. “I had seen the work he’d done on the Cisitalia, which was just a beautiful car. I felt, well this guy is good. …”
Reddig believes the problem may have been simply that Farina wasn’t used to the unique demands of designing large, American-type cars. “I’m sure this was the first time he (Farina) had the challenge to make a car with that sort of body dimensions, with the kinds of features that he was used to doing. And it just didn’t look right,” he said.
Thanks for the link, I missed that one somehow. I feel better that no photo of the original Farina proposal for the 52 model is known to exist, because I looked and looked and never found one.
You bet, and thanks for another top-notch CC on one of my favorites.
The Pininfarina catalogue raisonne features this image. The catalogue number (PF594 bis.) makes this closely related to the final Nash Healey coupe. It doesn’t show any large Nash sedan until the 55.
A few more things to ponder:
Nash was the only manufacturer to get it right with small cars in the early 50s. While the Rambler enjoyed a degree of success, the Willys Aero, Hudson Jet and Henry J were all failures.
The Kaiser auto line was not included in Mason’s plan for AMC because, for one Henry Kaiser would not take a back seat to anyone. For another, by 54 the Kaiser passenger car line was obviously dead. Kaiser bought Willys in spring 53, then abandoned Willow Run by Dec 53, moving Kaiser sedan production to the Willys plant in Toledo. Kaiser was already working his plan to ship the Kaiser tooling to IKA, so only produced a trickle of cars in Toledo to prevent the dealers suing him. The tooling for the Willys Aero, also killed in 55, was shipped to Brazil for another auto plant startup around 1960.
Kaiser powertrain enginner David Potter, who had been working on a stillborn V8 was hired by AMC and apparently took his Kaiser V8 work with him. When Romney became dissatisfied with the techonology sharing agreement under which AMC was buying Packard V8s, Potter finished up what became the Gen 1 AMC V8 and production started in a matter of iirc 18 months.
The irony of the engine deal being, if Romney had wanted to continue the large Nash line, and waited another year, he could have picked up all the tooling and equipment for the Packard V8 for a song. Packard spent some $27M on a new, automated machining line for it’s engine plant in Utica. After the closure, that equipment, only used for 2 years, only brought $200,000 at auction.
AMC did gain the Hudson dealers. While there was substantial overlap, there were several hundred markets where there had only been Hudson dealers, so AMC did realise a gain in distribution as well as an additional customer base.
The Nash “Weather Eye” was more than a marketing name. iirc Nash was the first company to introduce an air conditioning system that completely fit under the hood. Look in the trunk of a 50s Packard and you’ll see a huge box containing the A/C evaporator.
If you look at the numbers in 53, Studebaker sold more cars than Nash, and Packard sold more cars than Hudson. It was the two smaller companies that successfully merged and survived another 30 years.
Studebaker ended the war with a nice pile of cash in the bank, but paid out fat stock dividends, rather than building a new, efficient plant.
Packard ended the war with a really nice pile of cash. A teeny bit of foresight and they could have grabbed Willow Run for the paltry $15M that Kaiser paid. The move would have been really easy because all the auto production equipment had been removed from East Grand, packed in grease, wrapped in tarps and stored outside, so why not install it in a new plant, rather than putting it all back into East Grand?
Lots of fascinating history and insight, Steve.
In 1955 they developed styling clays of some big Nashes and Hudsons that would have been the ’58s. MrJynx has quite a collection at his site (link). Here’s one of them, I’m guessing it’s the Nash.
Much as I love the fifties Nashes, I don’t think big ’58 Nashes would have been successful against equally big and space-age cars from the well-established Big Three. Romney was smart to Ramble.
Here’s another one, I’m guessing this is the ’58 Hudson.
What a facinating collection of styling studies. Thanks!
I see 59 Rambler tailfins, 58 Mercury headlights, late 50s Mopar windshields. All very much in the mode of the 65 Ambassador: using the Rambler greenhouse with longer front and rear fenders.
This is the mule for the proposed 57 Packard, derived from the “Predictor” show car. Unlike Studie, Packard had designed it’s V8 to grow. Starting as a 320, as sold to Nash in 55, it grew to 352 and 374. The 57 mule had a 400. Rumor has it the Packard was designed to go as far as 500.
When Packard was shutting down, Dick Teague…yup, the same Dick Teague that was later at AMC,told a worker to cut up “the black car” in the studio. There were two black cars in the studio, and Teague had some fun with the guy, telling him “oh no, you cut up the wrong one!”. There had been no mistake, the guy had cut up the correct mule.
John DeLorean was an engineer at Packard rising to head of R&D, before moving on to GM.
The auto industry is really incestous. The same people keep popping up in different places. That’s probably why Nissan, Toyota and Hyundai all have engineering facilities around Detroit, so they can crib other company’s people.
Rear view of the 57 mule
Great site, thanks for the link
One question – did Kaiser own the Willow Run plant? I thought that the company leased it, and GM eventually bought it. The first Corvairs were produced at that plant, if I recall correctly.
Also, I’m not sure that AMC would have wanted the Packard V-8, even if it could have bought the tooling necessary to produce it for a song. The Packard engine was quite heavy,…I can’t see that engine working too well in the 1956 and later Ramblers. The Packard engine wasn’t particularly fuel efficient, so AMC may not have wanted to offer that engine while promoting Rambler as the “fuel economy king.” The AMC V-8s weren’t known as gas guzzlers.
Packard’s problem was that it had “out sourced” its body business completely to Briggs in 1940. When the owner of Briggs died, his family was faced with very high inheritance taxes. They sold the company to Chrysler around 1953, and Chrysler promptly told Packard it would no longer be supplying it with bodies.
Packard was thus faced with the prospect of once again tooling up for in-house body production – at the same time it was trying to restyle the old 1951 body, get the radical Torsion-Level suspension system ready for production, and get an all-new V-8 to market. All of this had to be done in time for the 1955 model year!
Packard chose to shift a large part of production, including body fabrication, to the leased Conner Avenue plant, which simply didn’t have the room to accommodate the necessary equipment and assembly lines. Production of the 1955 models was thus delayed, and when production did start, quality problems were rampant. That sunk the company’s reputation, which was reflected in the catastrophic sales drop for 1956. The collapse in sales for 1956 was the main reason that the insurance companies refused to bankroll the company’s planned 1957-58 models, which basically signed its death warrant.
In retrospect, giving away the body business to Briggs was a huge error, and one that played a large part in sinking the company.
In 1946, however, Packard’s management had no way of knowing how this would ultimately end. The company’s number-one concern at that time was getting enough steel to produce the rehashed 1942 cars that had several customers waiting for every car that rolled off the assembly line. Also note that the company’s East Grand Boulevard plant was actually considered to be quite competitive (in both condition and efficiency) for that time, so there wasn’t much incentive to walk away from it.
Outsourcing bodies to Briggs in 1940 turned out badly in the long run, but that’s when Packard started building V-12 aircraft engines in large numbers. Over 55,000 Packard V-1650 engines, based on the Rolls-Royce Merlin design, powered P-51 Mustang fighters and other warplanes. I wonder how that factored into the Briggs decision.
Unfortunately Packard didn’t become part of AMC…..
Outsourcing bodies to Briggs in 1940 turned out badly in the long run,
Sure did. The story of “why” supposedly was because production was recovering from the depression and E Grand did not have enough room to expand the existing body shop.
Over 55,000 Packard V-1650 engines
Not to mention the Packard V-12s built for PT boats. The PT boat engine was a development of a Packard orignated aircraft engine from the late 20s.
WWII industrial film about the Packard Merlin and PT boat engine programs during the war.
It is my understanding that Kaiser bought the Willow Run plant from Ford, which had built bombers there during the war. Kaiser sold the plant to GM right after a disastrous August, 1953 fire at GM’s HydraMatic plant, which disrupted automatic transmission supply to much of the auto industry. GM’s immediate need for a factory neatly coincided with Kaiser’s need to get out of car production at the hugely oversized (for Kaiser) Willow Run plant. Because Kaiser had so much unused capacity there, it was easy for GM to move right in while Kaiser wound down. Wiki says that GM was producing transmissions 9 weeks after the fire, so that would have been very late 1953, so well into Kaiser’s 1954 production year. I understood that GM’s purchase of the plant pretty much financed Kaiser’s purchase of Willys.
The scenario that I have found intriguing of late is a tie-up between Nash and Packard. Both Studebaker and Hudson were really terminal at that point, but Nash and Packard were both quite solvent. Nash was well set at the lower and medium ends of the market and Packard was at the top. Packard had a first-rate engineering operation at the time and its own V8 and automatic. In fact, Nash (AMC) bought some Packard engines and Ultramatics in 1955. The blockage there, of course, was the George Romney/Jim Nance issue, where neither would have wanted to play no. 2 to the other. But on the surface, those two companies might have had a better chance. A lineup of Rambler, Ambassador and Packard would have had the market covered pretty well. Plus, maybe they could have picked up Studebaker’s truck line and small V8 in a fire sale.
The possibility of Nash and Packard merger is intriguing, but I think that these companies were ultimately too small to maintain two separate networks of assembly plants, not to mention styling studios and headquarters.
The Nash and Hudson merger worked because the newly formed AMC basically shut down the Hudson plants, laid off the workers and executives (except for a few key Hudson personnel) and killed the “true” Hudsons (the Jet and the old Stepdown). AMC only kept the Hudson dealers, who suddenly had a viable product to sell when they were given Ramblers. This also benefited the Rambler, by giving it wider exposure.
Hudson was so weak by late 1953 that everyone could see that this was the only possible route to take.
Given that Packard was still a viable company even in early 1955, there would have been considerable resistance to shutting down any Packard facilities in favor of Nash facilities. Nash would have similarly resisted any effort to shut down the lines in Kenosha.
Given that Packard was still a viable company even in early 1955, there would have been considerable resistance to shutting down any Packard facilities in favor of Nash facilities. Nash would have similarly resisted any effort to shut down the lines in Kenosha.
One possibility: Nash had two plants in Kenosha: one at the corner of 52nd St and 30th Ave, and the “lakefront” plant. Nash also had a body plant in Milwaukee. All three were still operating into the 70s, in spite of Romney’s tirades against the Milwaukee workforce, when he once threated to close that plant..
The large Nashs were the same size as the Packard Clipper line, though unitized construction instead of body on frame, like Packard.
It probably would have been possible to move the senior Nashs onto the Clipper platform, built by Packard, and using the Packard drivetrain that Nash did use in 55. Then close Milwaukee and concentrate Rambler production in Kenosha.
Given the personal relationship between Nance and Romney, aggravated by Packard not recipricating by buying components from Nash, and Romney’s choice to concentrate on small cars, that would never happen.
I understood that GM’s purchase of the plant pretty much financed Kaiser’s purchase of Willys.
iirc, Kaiser purchased Willys in spring 53, maybe April, months before Hydramatic burned.
Kaiser’s need to get out of car production at the hugely oversized (for Kaiser) Willow Run plant.
Willow Run had not been so oversized, as nearly half was occupied by production of C-119 cargo planes for the Air Force, under a contract Kaiser had won. Charges flew about Kaiser overcharging for the planes and the contract was cancelled as soon as the Korean war ended in June 53. *Then* Willow Run was wildly oversized and Kaiser started planning the move of auto ops to the Willys plant in Toledo.
Plus, maybe they could have picked up Studebaker’s truck line and small V8 in a fire sale.
Frankly, I don’t think the Studie V8 was worth the bother. Too heavy and no room to grow AMC was better served by Potter’s V8.
Studie truck sales had fallen sharply since 48, possibly due to the lack of sufficently powerful engines as the Studie V8s lacked the low end torque a truck needs. Think about a Studie truck with a Hudson 308 in it, with a Packard 352 as an option.
Pic: new C-119 being rolled out of the Willow Run plant, with new Kaisers and Henry Js parked in the forground. Note the Kaiser-Frazer signage above the hanger door.
The loss of Kaiser’s C-119 business forced the issue on Willow Run, but it was an enormous plant and had always been too big for Kaiser-Frazer’s realistic prospects. When they leased the plant in the first place, Joe Frazer had wondered if they were biting off more than they could chew, but Henry Kaiser wanted to do things in a big way and thought the plant would send the right message. In retrospect, it was probably the first serious warning sign of the eventual schism between Kaiser and Frazer.
Willow Run was not owned by Ford, although it was designed by Charlie Sorenson. Kaiser-Frazer initially leased it from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation for a very modest amount (there was a trade-in-kind deal that meant K-F got the first year free). K-F eventually bought it outright; I don’t recall the year and I don’t see it in my notes. Since Kaiser was never actually out of hock with the RFC, all the money from selling Willow Run to GM went to paying off the RFC debt.
Willow Run was not owned by Ford, although it was designed by Charlie Sorenson. Kaiser-Frazer initially leased it from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Correct. While private companies operated the war plants, the government owned them. The Chippewa Ave plant in South Bend where Studebaker built B-17 engines during the war was also government owned. Studie bought the plant and moved some truck operations there. Chippewa Ave was then bought by Curtis Wright in the S-P bailout, though Studie bought it back a few years later. When Studie closed South Bend, Chippewa was bought by Kaiser Jeep. When AMC bought Jeep, Chippewa became AM General and continued to build Army deuce and a halfs and, later, HUMVEEs.
One question – did Kaiser own the Willow Run plant?
Yes. Kaiser paid around $15M for it. The money came from a government loan program to help companies aquire war plants. Kaiser borrowed some more to keep the doors open. Apparently one of the conditions of the new loan was to produce an inexpensive model, which became the Henry J. By the time Kaiser bailed out of Willow Run, it owed the government about $75M.
The Packard engine was quite heavy,…I can’t see that engine working too well in the 1956 and later Ramblers.
True. The Packard engine weighed about 705 lbs. Far too heavy for a compact, but not unreasonable for a large car, like a 55 Nash Ambassador. The large Packards had a 52/48 weight distribution, compared to Studebakers, with a 58/42 distribution using Studie’s smaller, but very heavy for their size, 259 and 289
Packard’s problem was that it had “out sourced” its body business completely to Briggs in 1940. When the owner of Briggs died, his family was faced with very high inheritance taxes. They sold the company to Chrysler around 1953, and Chrysler promptly told Packard it would no longer be supplying it with bodies.
Chrysler bought Briggs in October 53, though talk had been on the street all summer that that would happen. Chrysler told Packard they would provide bodies through the 54 model year, then Packard was on it’s own.
Packard chose to shift a large part of production, including body fabrication, to the leased Conner Avenue plant,
Connor Ave was apparently where Briggs had been building Packard bodies. Packard first looked at buying it, but, after buying the equipment for the new engine, transmission and rear axle lines in Utica, it didn’t have the cash, so leased the plant. To save the cost of shipping the bodies over to East Grand, frame fab and final assembly was moved to Connor, everything crammed into about 760,000 sqft. vs E Grand’s 3.5M. Horrible production bottlenecks abounded. Problems with the new generation Ultramatic further tarnished their reputation.
That sunk the company’s reputation, which was reflected in the catastrophic sales drop for 1956.
Partly, the sales drop was from the problems in 55, which were largely corrected in 56. Part of the problem was the press was full of reports that Packard was about to go bankrupt, and noone wants to buy an orphan car.
note that the company’s East Grand Boulevard plant was actually considered to be quite competitive for the industry at that time, so there wasn’t much incentive to walk away from it.
Not so much. Multi-story plants like E Grand did exist elsewhere, the Nash “lakefront” plant in Kenosha, Hudson on Jefferson in Detroit, Dodge Main, which hung on until the early 80s, but the new model was the single story plant using electricly powered conveyers to move goods, rather than gravity.
Packard wanted out of E Grand by the 50s. The jet engine plant, later to be the V8 engine plant, was built in Utica in 51. Packard’s plant engineering people figured moving into Conner Ave, which was single story, would save $12M. The bottlenecks ended up costing them $12M more than if they had stayed in E Grand.
The first Corvairs were produced at that plant, if I recall correctly.
A Fisher Body stamping plant and an assembly plant were built at Willow Run in the late 50s. The original bomber plant that Kaiser occupied was completely taken over by Hydramatic. Hydramatic had to find a new plant in a hurry as it’s 1.5Msqft plant in Livonia burned in August 53. GM first leased an unused part of Willow Run, then bought the entire facility for $26M when Kaiser vacated at the end of 53.
That’s the tantalizing thought: If Packard had listened to the rumors that Briggs would be sold to Chrysler, and noticed that Kaiser was getting ready to move to Toledo in June 53, and further realised that Kaiser had installed in Willow Run the stamping plant and body shop that Packard would soon need, along with everything else, except an engine plant, needed to build a car, it would have been a turnkey facility for Packard.
But the window closed on Packard two months later, when Hydramatic burned and Edgar Kaiser, Henry’s son and General Manager of Kaiser Motors saw the opprotunity to unload Willow Run and called Hydramatic to offer plant space.
Part of the reason Packard didn’t buy the Conner Avenue plant outright is that Chrysler wasn’t particularly keen on selling it. Jim Nance negotiated a price with L.L. Colbert and then while Nance was trying to put together the financing to pay it, Colbert said, “On second thought …” and upped his asking price by more than 15 percent. Since the original price was already a real stretch for Packard, that sent them back to the drawing board.
I think Nance realized that shifting assembly to Conner Avenue was a gamble. If worked out, it would have left Packard in a better position to actually develop some really new bodies rather than continuing to redecorate the existing shells; keeping assembly at East Grand would have been less risky in the short term, but wouldn’t have made Packard any more able to move forward.
while Nance was trying to put together the financing to pay it, Colbert said, “On second thought …” and upped his asking price by more than 15 percent.
Colbert knew he had Packard by the short ones. There was no other body plant available on short notice.
When Packard shut down, S-P wanted out of the lease on Connor and Chrysler didn’t want to cooperate. S-P ended up paying a sizable fee, maybe on the order of $900,000 to get out of the lease.
After Packard failed, I don’t think there was another taker for Conner and it was torn down around 1960.
The Willow Run plant would have presented Packard with the same problem it did Kaiser-Frazer: Willow Run was way too big and had way too much overhead for a smaller automaker. If George Mason had succeeded in uniting Nash, Packard, Studebaker, and Hudson after the war and they had all consolidated production there, that might have made sense, but keep in mind that after the war, George Christopher’s goal of Packard building 200,000 cars a year (which is what Packard figured they needed to have stable finances) was still out of reach.
The Willow Run plant would have presented Packard with the same problem it did Kaiser-Frazer: Willow Run was way too big
Well. Willow Run in Kaiser’s day was about 3.5M sqft. E Grand is about 3.5Mswft.
Packard’s jet engine plant in Utica, which was converted to produce engines, transmissions and rear axles when the jet engine contract was cancelled was reportedly 780,000sq ft when built, and Connor at 760,000sqft was much too small for what Packard tried to do there. And there were still some operations on E Grand. Willow Run would not have been that much of a stretch for Packard, if they could have found a buyer for Utica, like maybe Hydramatic, and consolidated everything in Ypsi. Only downside to that plan is having Hydramatic in the Utica plant would put them next door to the Packard proving grounds. The downside for Hydramatic being in Utica would be waiting for the jet engine contract to wind down, but SecDef Charlie Wilson being a GM honcho, I bet they would have offered terms to Packard to cancell the engine contract and vacate early so Hydramatic could move in.
Pic, the Utica plant, aquired by Curtis Wright as part of the government bailout of S-P, was sold again in 1961. C-W appears to have added some floorspace since Packard built it. The plant was bought by Ford and operated until recently, being torn down in the last couple years. For anyone wanting to look on Google Maps, the address was 50500 Mound Rd. Looking at the satellite pic, you can see the since torn down plant, and the remains of the Packard proving grounds.
The curved road on the left side of the photo is the Packard proving ground high speed track.
Rambler was the ‘hotter’ name in 1957, replacing 50 + y/o marques. But 10 years later, AMC became the make and Rambler reduced to the just the dated compact American. By 1970, name was gone forever, who knew?
I think Chrysler’s mid 60’s comeback from its 1962 sales disaster, hurt Rambler/AMC badly. Engel’s crisp styled cars may have stole Rambler customers, including my parents!
I believe that the 1963 and later Valiants and Darts hurt AMC. The oddball Virgil Exner styling was banished in favor of a more conventional look, and the cars were much better built than the 1960-62 models.
Couple those worthwhile changes with the better-handling torsion-bar suspension and superior Torqueflite automatic transmission, and it’s not too hard to believe that they captured a fair number of Rambler owners.
Havent seen a Nash Airflyte in a while the last time was a matched pair at Shepparton auto wreckers both complete and probably runners they were parked by the front fence where complete cars were dumped sometimes for sale. The ridiculously narrow front track is reminiscent of Dodge/Commer 2500 vans which despite trying to compete with wider Bedfords and Transits still relied on a narrow Hillman front suspension.
My dad was mostly a Ford man (until he switched to Nissan late in life) but for a brief time in the early 50’s he worked for a good friend’s Nash dealership and many in his family bought the big Nashes there before Nash-Kelvinator disappeared into AMC. Dad had a 47 600, 50 Ambassador, and 52 Statesman. My grandparents and aunt bought new 53 Statesmans (previously my grandparents had two Ambassadors, a 50 and 51). My memories of these cars:
• Powerful Weather-Eye heating systems, particularly important in those Midwestern winters in which I grew up
• Inefficient, vacuum-controlled wipers – no wiping when mashing on the gas
• Radios and clocks that might as well have been painted on the dash given how prone they were to fail after the first year
• Wide turning circles – my mother, a bad driver on a good day, had a hard time parking the 78-inch-wide Nash!
• Not much power but good gas mileage, especially with Overdrive
• Unreliable Hydra-matic transmissions – failed on Dad’s used Ambassador and my aunt’s and neighbor’s new Statesmans
• Roomy interior and comfortable ride – we had the Nash air mattress and window screen accessories that, with the fold-down seats, turned the car into a sleeping tent – good car for road trips (the 52 at a Florida fishing lodge below)
• Huge trunks
• Rust-prone bodies
Unique features a kid appreciated:
• The little metal tab on the clutch pedal that depressed the starter button on the floor (on the Hydra-matic models you pulled back on the shift lever to start)
• Nifty ball-in-socket shifter that was different than any other car
• A green bulb at the end of the turn single lever that blinked when you signaled a turn
• A drawer-type glove box that kept everything inside when you opened it
• Sleek dashboard with horizontal speedometer and almost flush radio dials
• Huge Nash insignia emblazoned on the grille, trunk, and steering wheel
• The Pinin Farina badges – cool but what kind of language was this?
• Gas cap hidden under the taillight
• Neat, fixed outside door handles that contained a bar you squeezed to open
Fabulous picture, and I have been waiting all day to hear from someone with significant firsthand experience with these. Google Books has a Sept 1952 Popular Mechanics magazine where Floyd Clymer had an owner survey and a lengthy road test. I had understood that the flathead Statesman was really slow, but that these were quite aerodynamic at speed and got some fairly impressive gas mileage numbers. From what I read, they were really very comfortable cars, and this was probably Nash’s one real strength.
My only firsthand exposure to one of these was in the early 70s. We were visiting relatives in Minnesota. One of my mother’s nieces had a boyfriend come to visit. The kid was college age, and showed up in a worn but presentable 54 Nash sedan. I was maybe 12 or 13 and after he told me I could hang out in his car, I probably spent an hour or more exploring it. It wasn’t much to look at, but it had a funky kind of appeal to me. All the research I did for this piece sort of warmed me up on these cars, and I like them more now than I did when I first photographed it.
Thrifty midwesterners definitely bought Nashes for the gas mileage. My dad brought home a lot of new Nash demonstrators in those days and the only ones I remember that had some zip were a 54 black over red Ambassador Country Club hardtop with the Lemans option (dual side draft carburetors) and a red Nash Healey convertible (wish I had a pic!). I haven’t checked to see if CC has done a feature on the N-H – what a car, kept hoping it would show up this week.
As a kid I liked the concave grille on the 54, thought it looked way more sleek than the one on the 52-53. Dad almost bought a 55 with the inboard headlights but he decided at that point Nash had no future and didn’t want another orphan in the driveway.
Nashes had such unique personalities. They would have been more enjoyable cars if Mason had allowed a change in the skirted front fender design, more power had been added, and the bodies had been less prone to rust (of course not a unique problem then but seemed to be worse on the Nashes).
Although we never had a highly-optioned model my dad mentioned that the Nash hydro-electric windows constantly failed (tube lines cracked and leaked fluid on the door sills) but the in-dash, all components-under-the-hood A/C system introduced in 54 worked really well. The Country Club hardtop we had for a few days had the power windows and I recall playing with them, probably the first I’d ever used.
To connect one more dot, the Le Mans engine (more properly Le Mans Dual Jet Fire) was a nod to the Nash-powered Nash-Healey sports car, which used the 253 cid Ambassador engine from mid-1952 until the end. (Earlier Nash-Healeys had the 235 cid version.) The name wasn’t marketing hooey — the Nash-Healey ran at Le Mans four times in a row, managing third place outright (first place in the 5.0 to 8.0-liter class) in 1952 with a more-or-less stock engine.
“I haven’t checked to see if CC has done a feature on the N-H – what a car, kept hoping it would show up this week.”
Maybe we should have a Healey week.
PS: Good thing the Nash-Healey didn’t have skirted fenders at Le Mans!
Green bulb on the indicator stalk was in use in Austins in the mid to late 50s my 55 Westminster was equipped thus.
BMC was still using that in the sixties! Morris 1100s had them.
Nice pic CA Guy…just wait until we have Studebaker week…
Inefficient, vacuum-controlled wipers – no wiping when mashing on the gas
And AMC persisted with vacuum wipers way too long. Not only my Mom’s 64 Classic still had vacuum wipers, so did my Aunt’s 70 Ambassador. Electric wipers were an option by 70, but my Aunt never thought to ask for them as electric wipers had been standard on her 65 Plymouth and 61 Chevy.
That is quite a set of recollections, really interesting. Cute pic, I presume that is you, a CC Kid even back then? My only first hand experience with a Nash was my somewhat eccentric uncle’s ’49 Statesman 2-door, the bathtub model (similiar to the blue one shown above), a bright yellow color. My aunt and uncle and my two cousins traveled the West in that car, camping everywhere along the way. My cousin still remembers the fold-down seats, and she fondly recalls naming the car the “schmoo,” and asking her dad to drop her off a block from school so she wouldn’t be seen alighting from this embarrassing contraption. My greatest recollection of it was that oddball Uniscope perched on the steering column. That and the fact that I remember it leaking radiator water like crazy, and my aunt was always fuming about having to continually stop to put water in it (which, of course, necessitated carrying jugs of water in the trunk). He finally traded it in on a ’53 Mercury in about 1955. My uncle was such a character, they continued the Nash theme inside their home with a giant Kelvinator refrigerator.
I remember folks having Kelvinator appliances. I think my grandmother may have had one.
There was a Nash plant in El Segundo, CA – did they not sell all that well out here? Definitely seem more like a midwesterner’s car for the time. However, if you look at some Julius Schulman photos of Lucy and Desi’s Palm Springs home designed by Paul Williams, you will see the back of a Pinin Farina Nash sticking out from the carport!
I was too young to be embarrassed by the family bathtub Ambassadors (at least ours was dark blue and my grandparents’ were white – not bright yellow!) but I recall not liking them very much even as a little boy. The back seat seemed like it was housed in a dark tunnel. I have a vague memory that Dad had child locks installed on the back doors for me and that the 52 was a two-door for the same reason.
Dealerships back then were pretty insistent that all employees drive their brand of cars. I recall a cousin being relieved once he left a Chrysler-Plymouth dealership and bought his own bodyshop that he could at last buy a VW beetle! And Dad pushed the matter by trying to get the family to buy Nashes to help out his friend’s fledgling business.
Other than body rust, the major problem I remember (perhaps a good bit through Dad’s reminiscences over the years) was the early Hydra-matic failures in the three cars I mentioned earlier. He was a bit soured on automatics for a few years as a result. Otherwise, no memories of leaky radiators or engine problems in general.
Interesting you should recall the old Nash plant in El Segundo. I hadn’t thought about that in years. My first real job the summer I started college was with North American Aviation in their engineering department, they had an enormous facility on the south side of LAX accessed from Imperial Blvd. If I recall correctly, a portion of their huge complex incorporated the old Nash plant.
Seems that the early to mid-50’s full size Nashes sold well enough out here, I remember seeing them around from time to time, and of course, the Ramblers and Metropolitans were plentiful. But as you observed, Nashes (and subsequently most AMC cars) were indeed pretty dorky, uncool cars and they disappeared quickly from L.A. streets. A friend of mine in high school (1962-65) had a ’59 Rambler, we were always piling into it for a ride home, dorky or not, it beat riding the bus!
Your comment about Lucy and Desi with a Pinin Farina Nash (was it the Nash Healey?) sticking out of their carport reminded me, unless I missed it somewhere, I don’t think anyone here during AMC Week mentioned the old Superman series on TV during the 50’s, where Lois Lane drove a Rambler and Clark Kent had a Nash Healey, Jimmy had a Metropolitan, and didn’t the Inspector have a ’50 Ambassador police car? Nash must have gotten a lot of mileage out of their product placement back then.
“Instead, it was designed by pinup artist George Petty, known for his Petty Girls in Esquire magazine and elsewhere. This 1953 version is one of several that he designed for Nash after World War II. Unsurprisingly, these Petty-designed flying ladies last adorned the 1955 models, and did not make it any further under George Romney’s management.”
I’d like to think that someone at the old Kenosha headquarters kept a wooden case hidden somewhere with one example of each of Petty’s flying ladies in it. Just as art objects of course. 😉
You mean like these?
The link in the piece takes you to a page with quite a bit of Petty’s artwork.
The ’53-’55 hood ornament is my favorite. I did an Outtake on a Crosley/lawn mower hot rod with one: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/car-show-outtake-to-what-is-this-nash-hood-ornament-attached/
After seeing “your” hood ornament, I realized the one I saw was missing the pedestal for her to rest her arms 🙂
I notice that in the options list for the 54 Statesman there is a simple listing for “Petty hood ornament.”
http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/NA/Nash/1954-Nash/1954-Nash-Airflyte-Brochure/1954-Nash-Airflight-07
Mention has been made that the Studebaker V8 was relatively heavy and did not allow for much increase in displacement. My understanding is that this was due to the engineers’ expectations that extremely high compression ratios (e.g., 14 to 1) would be utilized as gasolines continued to improve. So, they assumed engines wouldn’t need to get much bigger but would have to handle more internal stress.
Even so, it would have behooved them to allow a little more bore spacing, given the late-40s/early-50s interest in oversquare engines. Even the original iteration only had a bore-stroke ratio of 1.04 and the 289 was a little undersquare because 3 9/16ths was about all the standard block had room for. (The rare R3 took it out another 3/32nds, but I’m assuming that was a special casting.)
…due to the engineers’ expectations that extremely high compression ratios (e.g., 14 to 1) would be utilized as gasolines continued to improve.
That is my understanding as well. Gasoline had been improved during the war. I remember seeing storage tanks of avgas with 115/145 painted on them. Turned out this gas was never made available for road use.
Even so, it would have behooved them to allow a little more bore spacing,
Yup. When AMC produced it’s first V8, only 5 years after Studie, they made room for the engine to grow. While the Gen 1 engine was only extended from 250 to 327, the Gen 2 engine grew from 290 to 390, then the deck was raised to produce the 304-401 series. Apparently the Gen 2 engine was designed with the same bore spacing as the Gen 1 engines so the same machining line could be used.
I read an article where Romney was very proud of the Gen 1 machining line, which was highly automated, because it could machine a mix of different bores diameters, automatically adjusting as needed from block to block.
AMC could be regarded as the mother of “flexabile manufacturing” due to the wide variety of products, with limited facilities to build them.
I took a tour of Kenosha assembly in 75. As I recall, there were two lines, one running a mix of Matador and Hornet and the other a mix of Pacer and Gremlin.
At the head of the line was a huge warehouse where bodies, assembled and painted, were staged on dollies as they came in from the Kenosha and Milwaukee body plants. Two men would select a body from the staging area and push it to the head of the line. As the claw from the overhead conveyor picked up the body, a sheet of code numbers was taken off of the body and the codes typed into a computer terminal. The computer system would then tell the subassembly departments what components to put on the conveyors feeding the assembly line in the right sequence, so that, for instance, senior platform suspension components and a V8 would arrive at the line just as a Matador body approched and a leaf sprung rear axle and a six would arrive to meet a Hornet body.
Amazed me that they had so many people coordinated to tolerate so much variability in what the lines were building.
The article comports with JP’s always high standards, what is particularly notable is the many fascinating comments it generated. I feel like I finally learned something worthwhile today!
…what is particularly notable is the many fascinating comments it generated.
Once you get past the big three, the 50s were an amazingly turbulent time in the US auto industry. So many mergers, failures, disasters, missteps, triumphs, and the impact on the industry of the growth of suburbia and freeways. The shape and mission of cars changed. Now there were “second” cars and cars with enough power to maintain 70mph for hours without strain. Woe to anyone who did not have the finances to develop a V8 that provided the power the era demanded.
Then add in the end of the Korean war and the drawdown of conventional forces, and the resulting loss of defense contracts by automakers. In the early 50s, defense work accounted for half of Packard’s revenue, and 80% of it’s profit. Studebaker lost jet engine and Army truck contracts. Kaiser lost it’s cargo plane contracts, though DoD said that was for cause.
And the defense contracts dried up as the post WWII seller’s market ended, doubling the financial challenges for the smaller companies, who were then hit again by the Ford/Chevy price war in 54.
Let me add kudos for both the article and the comment thread!
Very nice article JP. I have had these on the brain recently, as my folks got me one of these Sun Star Platinum ’52 Ambassadors for Christmas. I love the red and white!
Wow, Tom, I looked this one up and that model is so cool. I envy your having enough space to accommodate all of these models! When Dad worked for the Nash dealership we had some promo models of these cars (I distinctly remember a pale blue one) but these must have gotten lost or destroyed – I was pretty young then and either I or my cousins probably used them up as toys. Sure would love to have one today. As Paul noted earlier, the old Nashes soon developed such a dorky, antiquated image that few people cared about them within a few years. Seems like that may be changing a bit today.
Not as much space as you’d think–there’s a lot of stuff in the garage!
I basically only get these for Christmas and my birthday nowadays. Back in the late ’90s when I was working summers and still living at home, I easily bought 20+ 1/18-scale models a year. And that’s not including old Corgis on ebay, Matchbox, Racing Champions Mint, and Johnny Lightning models in 1/64-scale. I don’t know what I was thinking…
Which is the power of the engine and the maximum speed
Interesting article. As I have read automotive history, Jim Nance was the guy who deep-sixed the eventual S-P merger with N-H while Packard was still on its own (barely) – by reneging on his agreement with Mason to supply the Ultramatic to American Motors at a really decent price. He apparently detested George Romney, widely regarded as the new Boy Wonder of the automotive industry and the major roadblock to his envisioned S-P conglomerate which would use Studebaker as a direct competitor to the Rambler in the small-car market. When Nance tried to hold AMC over a barrel by charging an arm and a leg for his automatic transmission, AMC merely struck a deal with GM for the Hydra-Matic, later to go to Borg-Warner.
Nance lost a good, stable cash cow over that one, and got Packard so full of red ink that by the time they bought Studebaker any chance of recovery was gone. Finding out after the purchase that Studebaker had been cooking THEIR books for years just make the denouement that much more bitter.
The bit about 1960s Ramblers was so on the mark! – my 1965 Ambassador was a 1930s car under the skin. Torque-tube drive, trunnions up front, the whole package…all there, in a great new skin. I doubt the Packard 289 ever would have been useful to AMC for more than a possible boat anchor in a proposed new marine division. After all, Nash did develop their own undersquare 327 V8 which was quite serviceable right into the late 1960s, along with its de-bored 287 little brother. The 287 I had was indestructible, lasting almost 180,000 miles in a 22-year-old car. Pity the unibody finally developed road-salt cancer. Had I owned it here in Florida, it probably still would be on the road today.
Does the 1951 Nash proposal clay model in that picture above seems to look like Harley Earl’s proposal for the 1955 Chevy-it has the grill of a Ferrari and even the headlights?
I wasn’t alive at the time, so I’ve learned all this history from CC and similar sources.
To me, it appears there was consumer demand for “economy cars” in the 1950s. The Big 3 (and Studebaker) took this to mean “keep building the same full-size cars, but strip them of all frills to the point where we can sell ’em cheap” whereas the independents built smaller cars. The big 3 could do this due (mostly) to economies of scale. It was cheaper to build more of the same body and strip them of frills than it was to build a whole new line.
Ultimately, the independents were proven right, and the Big 3 were proven wrong. Buyers really *did* want smaller cars. By ’60, the Valiant, Falcon, and Corvair existed, and people who wanted smaller cars could find them at their favorite Big 3 dealer.
Emmylou Harris knew the Nash Ramblers well …..
https://youtu.be/q2Ao9tc994o
Emmylou is awesome! She gets better with age.
+1 !
This is such a cool little car. It reminds me of, obviously, a Nash Metropolitan with a dash of sophistication and elegance.
I always thought the 50’s Nash’s we’re some of the prettier designs of the era. American, yet with a touch of Europe. Style in spades, without the wretched excesses. A car for a successful adult.
I agree with this article in that, while a lot of companies can claim some connection to the late American Motors Corporation, only Nash is virtually intertwined with it. It seemed that all AMC cars exuded the same Nash philosophy of providing a good value for money with a bit of delightful weirdness thrown on top.
Nash (and, by extension, AMC) survived the longest of the independents by figuring out, early on, that the only route to survival was to find a niche not yet completely owned by the Big 3. For them, it was the least profitable, small car market (and by ‘small car’, an actual smaller car by design, not a stripped-down full-size model).
Plus, they had some luck during economic downturns, which helped. It was mentioned that the falling-through of the proposed Nash-Hudson-Studebaker-Packard merger, due to George Mason’s death, likely kept Nash/AMC afloat, long enough to acquire the much more lucrative Jeep brand. If the merger had went though, rather than being successful, adding Studebaker-Packard likely would have taken AMC down with them.
As to the ‘value’ proposition, that worked until Abernethy came on board and diverted money from updating the small cars to developing a model-for-model strategy with the Big 3. AMC compacts were still priced competitively, but they were now nowhere near as modern as competing Big 3 compacts, even the ‘old-tech’ Falcon which, amazingly, managed to outsell both the much more radical Corvair and better-engineered (but goofy looking) Valiant.
It’s easy to dis AMC for their biggest, costliest mistakes in the seventies (Pacer and Matador coupe), but they were just trying to get back to the tried-and-true Nash ethos of exploiting markets the Big 3 hadn’t yet entered or had abandoned. A more successful case in point is the Hornet Sportabout wagon. The Big 3 had left the compact wagon market in lieu of just selling a strippo intermediate wagon so AMC jumped in and had the market to themselves (for a while, anyway).
The bones of a good-looking car are there, it’s just that they screwed up so many of the details by overdoing things. As well as those skirted fenders, there’s that funky cowl with the odd-shaped windshield, and the strange sculpturing under the side windows. Smooth away those oddities, widen the track six inches or more, and it could be a good-looking car.
Memo to Nash management: Leave Pininfarina alone! 🙂
The ’53 Statesman profiled here was my dad’s car! I was doing a little online research a couple weeks ago (I can’t even remember why now) and I Googled “53 Nash” or some similar term. One of the first photos to display was one that looked very much like Dad’s. I clicked through to find this post and the close-up photos of what was definitely my dad’s car for 30 years. That compass attached to the dashboard was a sure giveaway.
While I don’t know nearly as much about cars as my dad and brothers, I loved reading this article as well as all of the comments. We have a family of seven (five kids plus Mom and Dad), and it was a Big Moment when my dad came driving up to our house in Indianapolis in his new Nash, purchased and driven all the way from Massachusetts. We were not a wealthy family–far from it–so we kids knew full well how special it was for my dad to be able to afford this car. And the fact that he drove it all the way from the east coast cemented that day in our memories.
We grew up getting rides in this car (and in Dad’s ’27 Model T). We loved the big, long bench seats and the smooth ride of the Nash. My dad took impeccable care of it, and many of our weekends as kids were spent playing near our barn-turned-garage while Dad was working within on one of his cars.
Dad’s nearing 90 now and sold the ’53 just a couple of years back–in 2020 I think. I sure do miss it. I’ll post some of his memories of it below.
Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane, JP!
*From Dick Harold, of Noblesville, Indiana (formerly of Indianapolis where the Nash spent much of its time in our family):*
A bit of history on the red over black Nash I once owned. (I’ve also owned a ‘52 Nash Rambler Country Club Custom, a ‘53 Nash Ambassador Custom, a ‘51 Nash Statesman Super, a ‘56 Nash Metropolitan convertible and a ‘62 AMC Metropolitan hardtop.)
I added an electric clock and six seat belts to the interior of the ‘53 Nash Statesman Super. The Statesman vehicles came with a flathead 6 cylinder engine. I also added an oil filter to the engine which was considered an accessory at that time. I replaced the 670 15 black wall tires with 710 15 wide white wall tires. The Ambassador Nash cars had the wider 710 tires on them which I though looked a lot better. I also repainted the top red.
The car was all black except for the wheel rims which were red when I bought the car from the second owner. (An older gentleman bought the car new. When he died his wife would have his son drive her using the Nash on any required local trips. The estate eventually sold the car to a dealer who specialized in antique cars. He quickly sold it to the man I bought it from. He and his wife eventually moved to a smaller house with limited garage space. He put an ad in the Nash Times, a publication by the Nash Cars Club of America. I saw the ad while waiting on a phone call. By then the ad was a few months old, but I called the Nash owner and discovered that the car was still available. After some additional phone calls I flew to Massachusetts, bought the car and drove it back to Indianapolis. On the trip home I had only one surprise. Apparently the previous owner had removed the wheels and when he put them back on he failed to tighten the lug nuts. I had stoped at a rest park along the way and when I pulled into the car park area I heard a strange noise which I discovered were loose wheel lug nuts on a front wheel. I had brought along a few tools and tightened all four wheels to continue the trip with no additional trouble. Fortunately I had discovered the problem before there was any damage to the wheels.)
I knew from working at a Nash garage during my high school years that the wheel rim color matched the top color. When I checked the body tag I discovered that the top had been painted red when it left the factory. However it wasn’t uncommon for a customer to want the car to be one color back in those days, so the tops were sometimes repainted. Two tone car colors were something new at that time but not everyone liked them. Change comes slowly at times especially for older folks.
Years later I added a Nash overdrive to the car. It originally had only a three-speed manual transmission. It came from Massachusetts where there are a lot of hills and mountains thus overdrive was not a common accessory on those cars at the time.
When I bought the car it had something like 30,000 miles on the speedometer as I remember. When I sold it the car the speedometer read 60,000 plus miles on it, so I often drove the car on longer trips, because it was so comfortable with wide seats and a large interior.
I do not recall having any major breakdowns or trouble on the road while driving that car.”
*And one more memory of Dad’s:*
Oh, I forgot. I was driving my Nash to Boonville to attend a military school reunion. I was going over the Missouri River when the engine stopped, dead. Pulled off to the side of the road, looked in my tool box, found a used old and dirty distributor capacitor, changed it out and continued on my way. I had put a new one in before setting out on the trip but the new ones are made in Mexico or China and often fail.
What extraordinary stories – I’m glad you found this article. Thanks for sharing this car’s history!
One of my dad’s many photos of his Nash.
Kate, I just saw this – thank you so much for your comments! I remember talking to your father for several minutes as I took some photos at a local show held annually on Father’s Day. I remember him as an interesting guy who had a solid devotion to this old Nash. His and your added comments add so much.
I recall seeing the car there at that show for a few years, but had not seen it recently. But I have never forgotten it (or your dad). Please thank him for me, for bringing this one to the show, which allowed me to share it here.