(first posted 11/15/2012) It’s one thing to find a “Bathtub” Nash in a static display, but on the open road–and on a rainy day, no less? But really, getting passed in the right lane? I know these things were just about the most aerodynamic American cars of their time, but who drives one like this?
CC’s Nigel Tate posted these shots of his unexpected encounter with the Nash, which took place just a couple of days ago. I can’t tell for sure, but I’m going to assume it’s an Ambassador, since the 600/Statesman had all of 85 hp from its little 184 cu in flathead and was somewhat famous for being as slug-like as it looked. But the mighty Ambassador had the big 235 cu in motor with a terrorizing 115 hp. Here it comes…
…streaking by. Looks like they’re hauling quite a load, too. And yes, by the length of that hood it is an Ambassador.
And there it goes, zooming down the highway in the right lane at some ungodly speed. Somebody call the police! That rear-window wiper must come in handy on rainy days like this.
Related bathtub reading:
Curbside Classic: 1950 Nash Statesman Airflyte: Did Somebody Say Bathtub?
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: Nash Airflyte “Police Special”
Vintage Photos: Nash And Ramblers On The Road – 1950s-1960s
How DO you change those tires?
Quick release axles?
Nowadays they use a lift. Found here.
It looks like a big Orange Junebug! 😀
I recall something about Nash dealers having to give demonstrations on that point because contemporary buyers asked the same thing.
Maybe they WERE the police. Now we understand that outrageous power of these cars, and why so many old TV shows and movies made Nashes into police cars. Could there have been a couple of detectives in Fedoras, one of them talking into a radio handset that looked like a telephone? “This looks like a job for Superman!”
Speaking of Superman, here a screenshot of a 1951 Nash taken from an episode of the 1950s Superman tv series
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_499929-Nash-Ambassador-1951.html
And here another picture at http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1949-1951-nash-airflyte4.htm showing a 1951 Nash painted with the police color set used in the Superman tv series.
I seem to remember reading that George Reeves used his own Nash-Healey in the show as Clark Kent’s car.
“Mobile Operator, get me KLondike 5-3896!”
*bong bong* “You can get – Klondike bars – at these – three – supermarkets in the area.”
“Way to ruin the fantasy, Siri.”
This is awesome. Seeing unusual/classic cars in action is so much better than seeing them parked at a show. That Nash is an amazing design I don’t know a lot about. Looks like it has a huge amount of interior/storage space! They need to be careful with it, though.
“Hey buddy, how do you get this car out of second gear?!” I don’t suppose PurveyorOfTheOdd was driving a Cadillac at the time?
That would be a big disgrace….
Great, now the front passenger/photographer/me has “Beep Beep” stuck in his head for the next week or two>:(
lolol That “ole tune” started playing in my head, soon as I saw the headline and the first pic. (beep, beep))
Right, “Beep Beep” by the Playmates. My mind went there immediately.
I’ve been gazing at these photos for days now, including this morning before you posted this. Something about the Airflyte is mesmerizing to me. Our family’s used Airflyte is the earliest car I can remember, and I was one car crazy little boy, so surely that’s part of it. But I’m not the only one taken by this thing.
Close inspection of the ‘large 2048’ photos on Flickr reveals two things:
1) You’ve got the photos in reverse order here, the photographer is passing the Nash. The Mobil sign in photos 1, 2 and 4 makes that clear. Sorry, I like it much better the other way, especially the unmarked police car theory.
2) Photo 3 clearly shows the end of its “Ambassador Custom” script.
The future isn’t what it used to be.
Spoilsport! Do you want to get banned from commenting here? 🙂
Awww, somebody was bound to point that out sooner or later. JPC made me laugh out loud with those fedoras.
By the way it’s a 1950 Nash. Rounded bumper guards and covered fuel filler.
You engineers all think alike…always trying to figure out stuff!
Especially when we’re supposed to be working 😉
That’s how it goes Paul. To paraphrase Scott Adams, if we hang around long enough without a problem to solve, we’ll create one.
They say that the Engineering major says “How does it work?”
The science major says “Why does it work?”
The liberal arts major says “You want fries with that?”
And the lawyer says it should have worked better. 🙂
And the accountant says “How much does it cost?” and “It costs too much, how are we going to make it less expensive?”.
The lawyer then replies to the accountant: ‘that’s ok- even if it kills people and they sue its still cheaper than doing it properly.’
Neh, that’s the lawyer to the engineer facing budget cuts.
The photographer (myself) has came out of the woodwork to tell the truth, Mike is right.
Love watching the mind of a detective in action! Mike PDX is henceforth known as ‘Sherlock’.
It’s true!
Especially noticable to me is the Pennsylvania vintage plate (they were year-specific prior to March 1958) which, thanks to recent legislation, can now be run on your classic PA vehicle.
My first family car memories were first a pre-1949 black 4-door Nash, and then the new style 4-door Ambassador “bathtub” in a cocoa brown. I was small, the back was huge!
Yeah, that is definitely an Ambassador. These had a longer wheelbase than the Statesman, and the length is between the front axle and the firewall. The “Nash on road 3” photo shows it.
I once rode in a 1949 Statesman sedan that an acquaintance owned. This was a long time ago, when I owned my nine-year-old first car, a 1947 Chevrolet Fleetline, and I’m here to tell you that I’m sure it could run circles around that Statesman – the only way I could tell that the Nash was in low or second gear was by the gear noise; there was no palpable sense of acceleration at all.
Clearly, Pete, this is because these cars were actually manually powered by a friction motor. Didn’t you see Kevin Martin’s piece from a few days ago? 🙂
That looks like a twilight zone movie scene! I’ll bet if felt like one too.
Given the famous fold-down seats, I just had to post this. Can’t resist.
Something about the angle of the car, road and camera in that first (last) shot just knocks me out. Here’s a quick and dirty crop to emphasize that.
That’s what caught my eye; explains why I put it first.
Good choice.
That first (last) shot (non-cropped) could be a CC clue photo ya know.
Very cool pictures!
Growing up in Kenosha, there were plenty of these around. The most memorable one was the one the old woman across the street owned into the early sixties. Black four door with LONG curb feelers, which somehow fascinated me at my young age.
My father used to swear at the woman under his breath every time he tried to back his Barge-tactic ’59 Mercury out of the driveway with the Nash right across the street. “She’s got a damn driveway!”.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, there was one of these in a wrecking yard near here. It looked complete, in fact, it looked like someone had started a restoration on it and given up. The engine was sitting in the passenger compartment, disassembled. I don’t have the money now, and then I had even less … It is/was only about fifteen minutes from here …. 🙁
Where is “here”?
Beep Beep is going to be stuck in my ear for a week now..
If you’re wondering who “PurveyorOfTheOdd” is, it’s me.
Brilliant!
Wow, what a car; I love these things. And I have to echo the earlier comment about it being stuck in second gear, even though it’s not a Rambler. Beep-Beep was the first thing I thought of, even before I read the post.
Great find Alfasaab!
Thanks Tom.
This car looks larger than I wold have thought. I can’t upload photos, but the instrument pod makes the interior as distinctive as the exterior.
Wow. My friend’s grandfather drove one of these when we were little kids in the mid-sixties. God we loved riding in the back of that car, and playing with the fold-out bed.
“Getting Passed On The Right By A Speeding Bathtub Nash” sounds like either an Album name or a Song Lyric, I can’t decide which.
Reminds me of “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in my Hand” by the 90’s one-hit wonder, Primitive Radio Gods.
Lyric by Frank Zappa, I’d guess, or a song title by early Pink Floyd. 🙂
If you’re imaginative enough, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly or Queen (performing in a style similar to “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”) could probably pull off a song with that lyric in a Rock & Roll-esque sound relatively well.
Cars have such strong associations. When I was probably 5 or 6 years old, a family who lived ‘on the edge of town’ (cue creepy music) had one of these. To me the mother looked like something out of ‘The Mummy’s Curse’ (no pun intended), and their strangeness was certified when their son showed how me your pee turned bright pink after eating beets. The horror!
These cars have had a high creepiness quotient for me ever since.
Oh no…. 1951 Nash Airflyte – $1250 (Portland, Or)
Non-running complete 1951 Nash Airflyte. Has clock, radio etc. Oregon title.
Thank heavens I have nowhere to put such a thing.
I have always loved these cars. Just a neat design — and it would be hard to beat that hood ornament…
A stellar and magic interlude. Thanks for sharing!
To think, all these photos were taken on an iPhone…
It must have the stormwatcher upgrade to the uniscope!! ^_^
“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” – George Carlin
This one is in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit.
That’s a 1950 Nash Rambler. It was a compact car, and was smaller than the Statesman and Ambassador.
And much more attractive!
This car features the “Petty Girl” hood ornament, which was a factory-approved option offered by Nash dealers. The “Petty Girls” were drawings of beautiful, provocatively clad young women that were popular until Playboy upped the ante. The rock group The Cars later featured Petty Girls on some of its album covers.
Note that the taillights are entirely housed on the trunk lid. These cars featured an extra light attached to the inside of the trunk opening that functioned as the taillight if the car was driven with an open trunk lid.
I’m pleased to see this. Being from a former “Nash family”, I always feel like a bit of an orphan. As luck would have it, there’s currently a 1950 Nash Statesman (not Ambassador) in Hemmings. Also including a picture of my Grandfather’s 1940 Ambassador in Amarillo, TX.
Ambassador
What comes around goes around, isn’t it? I saw this when going to take a trip to Chelsea, MI to see the Jiffy Mix (food products) factory. To date, this is the only time I have seen a “bathtub” Nash in the wild.
What was the CCR song? “There’s a bathtub on the right.”
I saw one of these in the wild around 1975. I was 11, and had never seen one of these, and found it quite fascinating.
The wheel wells are simply awful from a number of standpoints, but I still think it’s a really cool car.
I’d love to have one in my garage.
“Bad Moon Rising”. (there’s a bathroom on the right)
A bit precarious when your brand’s popularity, is integral with a specific styling look adopted by the auto you sell.
Nash certainly weren’t afraid to take a chance stylistically speaking. I can see the inspiration, but unfortunately the high build and lack of wheel arches to break up the flanks makes it look like a gigantic slug on casters.
Just because a car is old doesn’t mean they have to be driven slowly- although within their brakes’ capacity to stop them. Also, once one has a certain head of steam in something that doesn’t regain speed as quickly as as a modern, one is tempted to use the momentum and keep it up!
Many Aeroflytes in early ’50s film noir movies.
Perhaps the most in #Suddenly1954 with Sinatra and Hayden.
Amusing story idea – but my first thought was…
vacuum wipers; behaviour under acceleration and low vacuum.
Would love to see factory specs on Police Car Packages,
suspension, brakes, and motor spec,
Because with so many movies showing them, there had to be a reason they were police cars.
Unless it was all comfort, for officers on 12 hr shifts.
If I were going to choose a Rambler associated with a movie or television, it would be the 1963 American convertible from 3rd Rock from the Sun.
That accessory rear window wiper, was a pretty nifty vacuum one (as were the fronts). I had an NOS kit at one time…sold it to a buddy with an Ambassador Brougham! Clever article, Paul!
Did I miss “where was this pic taken”? If it’s “PA”, can we narrow it a bit?
It wasn’t in PA, it was in MI. Specifically, looking back on old Google Street views from around the time I took this pic on the route I remember taking, I took this pic on SB US-23 near the exit for 9 Mile Rd in Whitmore Lake, MI
Hi Nigel! Good to hear from you.
This evergreen post keeps them…guessing wrongly. 🙂
Thanks. Admittedly, it’s my first time back here in a while, some things appear to have changed around here (namely the logo), while others are comfortably familiar. It’s almost like my grandparents’ home, some things change from time to time (like them getting a new TV because the old one went out), while others remain exactly as I’ve remembered them for the last eternity. Any big changes around here I haven’t picked up on?
I’m surprised this keeps getting incorrect guesses, even with me having put up a location in the comments way back when (even if I was about 30 miles off of where the actual location was in retrospect). Such is life I guess.
It seems almost serendipitous for this to be posted when it was, seeing as I got a project car shipped up earlier this week that has at least a passing resemblance to a Bathtub Nash. That project car being the 1992 Buick Roadmaster below. It’s about the closest thing to a polar opposite of my DD (a Subaru Crosstrek) as I can think of and I love it. It definitely is going to need some work for me to be confident in driving it around more, but it’s got good bones (low miles, no rust). Also, I’m no longer the co-admin of “The Brougham Society” that never owned a broughamy car (let alone a single domestic), lol.
Awesome, and yes, these, and especially the early Chevy version with the low rear wheel openings have always reminded me of bathtub Nashes.
Yes, we’re still doing our thing here, and we’ve grown substantially in recent years. CC has grown up some, and some folks have gone and other come, although there’s till a few of the early stalwarts around.
All the best, and enjoy that bathtub Roadmaster. Just try to avoid too much passing on the right.
I’ll agree that the Chevy version (pre-1993, before the skirted wheels got eliminated) had more of a resemblance to the Bathtub Nashes than this. Regarding the bathtub Caprice, my preference is for the 1995-96 without the skirting and with the Hofmeister kink. I always thought the final gen B-Bodies needed a bit of extra mass in the C Pillar (or in the Caprice’s case, technically the D Pillar) to really make the design work, which the Roadmaster and Fleetwood always had.
Good to hear on both counts. I see some of the early stalwarts are still active contributors here (both as authors and commenters, like JPCavanaugh, Jason Shafer, yourself, Steve, among others). On my end, there are a couple people from the early days of CC I still regularly talk to or see, namely Richard Bennett/supremebrougham, and Steve (who I see got an alternate history published here last year, and usually shows up at Rich’s annual car show). Fun tidbit about Rich, he has a segment in an upcoming PBS documentary on AMC.
Thanks and will do. Who knows, eventually I might have enough material (and inspiration) to do a write-up on it. My writers block for fun writing has got worse as I’ve got deeper into college and academic writing, but that should (hopefully) ease up in a few years.