You probably wouldn’t want to try this with a 1950 Nash Rambler either if you could avoid it, but roof strength like this was why Nash proclaimed its new Rambler Custom convertible landau “the smartest, safest convertible in the world,” offering “all the thrill of an open car with the comfort and safety of a sedan!!!”
Like all 1950 Nash cars, the new compact Rambler had Airflyte unitized construction. This made it light and stiff, but it really needed its roof pillars for structural strength. So, how could Nash make it into a convertible without turning the otherwise rigid structure to Jell-O?
Voila! Add a retractable fabric roof while leaving the pillars and side window frames fixed, creating a European-style convertible landau. As Nash consultant Larry H. Nagler explained:
A novel approach to the rigidity problem of the convertible has resulted in a light weight open vehicle which has the road-feel of a well-designed sedan. Permanent overhead rails are used to provide a girder-like body structure, and thereby make unnecessary the usual cumbersome under structure of the ordinary convertible. The Rambler convertible avoids entirely the flexibility and looseness commonly associated with convertibles on rough roads. Fit of doors and windows is readily maintained in service, and the usual body rattles and squeaks chargeable to convertibles are absent. The overhead rails provide a distinct safety feature in case of accidents.
Keeping the side window frames also reduced drafts with the top down.
Admittedly, this didn’t make for the most graceful side profile, and with its top up, the Rambler looked like it was wearing a toupee.
However, with its soft ride and standard “Weather Eye” heater, the little Rambler could be just the thing for a leisurely drive on a cold but sunny winter’s day — so long as you at least tried to keep it right side up.
Related Reading
1950 Nash Rambler Convertible Landau: Adorable, Thrifty, But Not Cheap (by me)
1950 Nash Rambler Custom Station Wagon – The Original Luxury Compact Turns 75 (by me)
What I find interesting is that AMC went to the trouble of engineering a full convertible out of the ancient 1950 hard points for the 1961-63 American convertible rather than reintroducing this body style.
Lois Lane approves!!
A friend of my parents in Towson (Stoneleigh), Mrs. Dawson, got a new one in dark blue in 1952. A couple of years later around age 5, 6 or so I got to ride in it, and I still recall thinking it was a very odd car compared to Dad’s ’53 Chevy. I knew most of the makes on the road by then.
Some years later Mrs. Dawson had moved up to a ’64 Vista Cruiser (I don’t recall what car came between them), Mr. Dawson had a big Starfire, and they had moved out to a very nice neighborhood out near Loch Raven, moving well up in the world in both aspects. To this day it seems rather extraordinary for her to to have had that oddball car, and I still think those Rambler convertibles are weird. Just too far ahead of it’s time in some ways.
Call me a cynic but I think the safety benefit is dubious, placing a car gently on its roof isn’t mimicking the forces of a rollover at speed, it’s demonstrating that the windshield and rails simply won’t crush under its own weight, and quite frankly I’d wager there were true convertibles where nothing but the windshield structure could support the weight of the body if gently set on it like this if anyone bothered to try. If this were in an actual accident where it landed upside down most likely the rails would just get bent into the cabin or out since there’s no steel roof or internal structure to brace them to each other.
The fact is beyond the requisite chassis stiffening a normal convertible requires different side glass, different window frames in the doors, different weatherstripping and sometimes different mechanisms, all of which can be skipped with this solution. Nash made convertibles before this and soon after this like the Metropolitan and eventually in this very same core Rambler body as the American, what happened to the “smartest safest convertible” pitch for those?
No doubt in my mind it just boiled down to money, the Rambler was pitched as a fashionable compact and what self respecting fashionable car in the post-war period couldn’t be had as a convertible? This was the most expedient way to accomplish it until a real solution could be made, much like the Jaguar XJS-C.
It was smart marketing and a safe bet for Nash, that’s probably the real truth in advertising here.
They put some 2 x 4’s under the rails so they could still sell it. George Mason was pretty autocratic so he might have even come up with this marketing scheme.
I concur the structure would just fold over in a real rollover.
“The fact is beyond the requisite chassis stiffening a normal convertible requires different side glass, different window frames in the doors, different weatherstripping and sometimes different mechanisms, all of which can be skipped with this solution.”
Something I never considered until this very moment is that starting in 1951, Nash had most of those pieces when they made a genuine Rambler 2 door hardtop. Yet, for some reason, they never went the next step to offer a proper convertible. This odd pairing of a convertible that looked like a 2 door sedan and a different 2 door hardtop continued all the way to 1954. In 55, the last year of this generation, they killed the convertible but kept the hardtop. Strange.
The point was that they wanted to retain the side roof rails as a structural element (which the Rambler Country Club hardtop did as well). All the rest of that stuff was incidental. When AMC added the true Rambler American convertible for 1961, I assume they decided to bolster the floor and lower sections of the body structure instead, which was probably a big part of why the 1961 Rambler American Custom convertible was over 300 lb heavier than a 1950 Rambler convertible landau.
Call me a cynic but I think the safety benefit is dubious, placing a car gently on its roof isn’t mimicking the forces of a rollover at speed…If this were in an actual accident where it landed upside down most likely the rails would just get bent into the cabin or out since there’s no steel roof or internal structure to brace them to each other.
It’s hard to say exactly how strong those are and how they would behave in a rollover, but there’s no doubt in my mind I’d rather be in this than the typical convertible back then in such an event.
There’s no shortage of full-roofs that I’d even trust whatsoever:
Lois Lane knew .
These are more sun roof than convertible but they’re great cars .
-Nate
It sure makes tire rotations easier!
I think Nash may win the prize for the company that went longest between cancelling a convertible model and re-introducing one. Some quick looking at brochures suggests that the 1941 Nash was the last to offer a convertible until this car, which I don’t consider a true convertible, at least in the way most of us think of convertibles. The 1961 Rambler was the next true convertible, so a gap of 20 years. Even the 9 years between the 41 Nash and the 50 Rambler was a long time back then.
Nash built 1000 Ambassador convertibles for 1948, Pre-war, Nash convertibles were virtually hand built cars although they were catalogued through 1941, Production was miniscule, as are survivors now.
Thanks for this, I had no idea!
I think these little Nash Rambler Custom Convertible Sedans were cute and reminds me of those bumper cars I rode at amusement parks as a child. I would like mine in a bright, fun color. The concept was not bad but frankly who wore seat restraints so the whole concept of roll-over protection was mute. Perhaps it was back in the 1970s I read somewhere that convertibles were less likely to roll-over due to their additional weight. I have owned many convertibles and never believed that reasoning. A sedan convertible did have some practical merit as anyone familiar with convertibles understands its a little more comfortable to ride with the windows up once you exceed 50 mph. I only experienced a roll-over once, in a Corvair coupe, and walked away only slightly bruised. However, I did have the trailer of and 18-wheeler roll on top of my little Hyundai Excel hatch, peeling back the roof and top of my head. Didn’t walk away from that one but after piecing back my head I did look almost ten years younger. Sure, there might be a little extra risk driving a convertible but I find the sunshine and fresh air worth it. My protection is always keeping sun-screen lotion in my convertible.
I was looking at these in one of Foster’s books last night and noticed another oddity that must have been a last-minute fix. The front fenders belong with a lower cowl. Those side vents are unnecessary since the big center vent was enough for the Weather Eye on the big Nash.
My farmer neighbor had a black one he ran the crap.out of in the fields. After it stopped running I used to like to sit and play driving in it. Such cool unique little cars…