Now here’s a truck you’re not likely to find in the US: a medium duty Nash, from the late ’40s or early ’50s. That’s because they were only exported, which explains this one found in Uruguay. Apparently Nash did sell a few to their dealers, to be used as tow trucks, so theoretically, you might find one if you keep your eyes peeled.
Why didn’t they sell them in the US?
I don’t have an official answer, but undoubtedly there was just too much competition from the big guys. In the US, one needed a significant volume to justify marketing a vehicle. But in remote countries, it was a different ball game. Keep in mind that until the ’60s or so, exports were still a significant factor for American manufacturers, especially the independents. All of them were active exporters, and typically carved out a strong position in certain markets. They could charge higher prices, and thus make a significant profit.
Ironically, Nash was once a big truck maker, from 1918 to 1931, and had a considerable volume. And there’s reason to believe that Nash was seriously considering getting into the pickup market, given these shots of some very well developed prototypes.
But given the hot seller’s market after the war, there was no good reason to allocate precious production facilities to pickups or trucks, except those small numbers exported for fat profits and the several hundred sold to dealers to use for themselves.
It is my impression that from the beginning to sometime in the late 60s/early 70s, most buyers thought of pickup trucks as tools to get some job done, not so much as personal transportation.
When people buy tools, they tend to buy the least expensive tool that will get the job done adequately and reliably. Since optional equipment tends to be more profitable than the base vehicle, I agree with your contention that a manufacturer with limited production capacity would be better served my making and selling cars, hopefully loaded up with options.
But – and there’s always a but – why take up any of your production capacity (and design, too!) designing and building trucks strictly for export?
But – and there’s always a but – why take up any of your production capacity (and design, too!) designing and building trucks strictly for export?
Well, profit per vehicle, plus the fact that those trucks seem to use a heck of a lot of the parts already on the cars. It looks a lot like a generic Nash body adapted to a medium duty truck. And as noted, the medium duty market here in the USA had more competition, and was less robust in other countries where they were already exporting their cars. They had a distribution set up, and the truck manufacturers did not. So the minimal cost of a medium/heavy duty truck chassis, with the car’s body added, was fairly cheap and easy to make, and then ship over to where there was less competition. And the pickups? Fully cars with the back chopped off and a bed added. Professionally, and done well, but not like today’s pickups that are separate from the sedans. Those were cheap to make for dealers here, and kept the competitor’s trucks from being used by that dealer. Better to keep those inhouse folks eating their own dogfood than having to buy a Chevy or Ford pickup as the shop truck.
In the 60s/early 70s pickup trucks were only tools to get some job done. Aside from lengthy crew cab models, they only had two doors, seated three people at the most, rode hard and handled poorly. It wasn’t until after the first extended cabs were offered in the mid-70s did they start becoming popular with commuters. Manufacturers took note and started building them with more creature comforts.
Evan, reread the last paragraph. The answer to your question is there.
Keep in mind that different American car makers had very different relative exposure/market share in any given export market. As a hypothetical scenario, if Nash had a very ambitious importer/distributor in Uruguay, it might well have been the #1 selling American brand, or maybe #2 or #3, but in any case a much greater market share than Nash had in the US. So in order to protect that profitable market share, they needed trucks too, as trucks often represented a much greater percentage of export sales than passenger cars, for obvious reasons. So they built trucks for them. And it was very profitable.
This was the case with export markets all over the world. Studebaker had an assembly plant (from kits) in Israel, so their market share was drastically higher than at home. Ford and Kaiser were exceptionally big in Argentina. Ford was also dominant in Valenzuela. Etc. Etc.
Export markets were a whole different animal than the domestic market. And as I said, the independents cultivated export sales very aggressively, as they needed it more than the Big 3. And they invariably had a very high ranking executive in charge of just the export markets only.
All this is mostly history. The one recent example is Cadillac’s very ill-fated attempt to export in Europe in the 90s and 00’s. They created special versions/models, and even a unique for Europe car, the BLS, Cadillac’s ultimate Cimarron V2.
The Israel Studebaker plant is still around, think they’re building Ram trucks now. Kaiser-Ilyn, it started out building Kaisers and has switched brands several times.
Here’s a tow truck.
Simply put, the cab is devoid of any identifying traits. It’s a perfect mishmash of the GM and Studebaker cabs, with a little International thrown in for good measure.
The cab (and hood and fenders) is straight from the passenger cars. You’ve fallen for the “cars/trucks all looked alike back then” stereotyping. Which is understandable, but if you had been born in 1928 you wouldn’t say that. 🙂
I went looking for any of these in the late-1940s and early-1950s papers, but very rare–and most of these [1948-1954] are indeed announcements of a new **commercial** vehicle. (The lower-RH one, in SoCal specifically mentions “export model”).
Second from top in left column is a NY State dealer—it’s a 1949 model that is advertised for months on end (in 1950 they just start calling it a “new” Nash truck).
Me, I know nothing of all this, though here’s an interesting Hemmings writeup: https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2018/03/08/never-produced-nash-pickup-prototype-pops-up-for-sale-in-europe
That’s interesting — sure seems to suggest that Nash trucks were sold in the US to the general public. But there seems to be many reputable sources out there saying that Nash trucks were sold only to Nash dealers in the US. I wonder if actual US commercial sales were attempted, but would up being so small as to have been lost to the annals of time.
I came across a US-market brochure as well, featuring Nash trucks other than tow trucks, and marketed to general trades. An excerpt is below:
George’s ads suggest that one truck was being offered for sale; the rest are for dealer tow trucks. And there’s a notice that some export trucks had been delivered to a US buyer.
There’s certainly evidence that some trucks allocated for dealer use were sold to private buyers, and apparently some dealers got export trucks to sell, but that’s not quite the same as actually marketing trucks to domestic buyers generally.
As to that brochure, I assumed there would be one for export markets.
The large Nash 252 OHV 6 cylinder was a decent truck engine, a few were used by Diamond T in some of their smaller trucks.
If one has access to a Hollander Interchange manual for trucks in the era, very likely one would find that most of the major chassis components were shared with other heavy truck builders such as Diamond T, REO, IH, Mack etc. Nash manufactured components would have been the OHV seven-main-bearing 235 and 252 Ambassador sixes plus the cab and sheet metal.
Certainly profitable in export markets where Nash had significant sales, plus a nice sop for the domestic dealers to equip themselves with a Nash ‘hook’ to tow in disabled cars…especially competitive makes…
Nicely kept specimen with a well-built stake bed. Sort of covered wagon style, more common here in the ’30s, often used for livestock and produce. Wonder what the front part was meant to hold? Hay bales?
Another thing that might have tipped Nash against moving forward with trucks domestically was the steel shortages that were a huge problem right after the war. As I recall my history, steel was rationed in roughly the proportions of companies’ pre-war market share. So when you could sell every car you could make and take a fat profit on it, trucks would be a costly second line that would probably less profitable than cars because sales then were mostly not retail but to businesses. Substantial increases in volume were not going to happen if you couldn’t get the steel.
Studebaker had a strong truck line before and during the war and so it made sense for them to keep the line going. But even after an all new line in 1949 they only got to about 5% of the market. Nash had to figure that they would end up with less share than Studebaker, who had less share than everyone else.
All that said, what a cool truck this one is!
To make profit on the 120-odd HaulThrifts that were sold in Australia in RHD must’ve made them pricey things hereabouts. Nash wasn’t a big name here at all AFAIK, though American brands were much-liked (if little afforded then) and I guess anything not Chev or Ford sounded a bit exclusive. Nice-looking things, these. This one’s in the chilly and very wet south of the island state of Tasmania, with Geeveston being just about the last town before the the Antarctic.
A collector of Nash/AMC products about twenty-five mile from here has one of the Nash tow trucks in his collection, It was kept in service by the dealership as they transitioned into a successful Rambler/AMC dealer, used into the 1970’s before the collector bought it. Nice original condition.
Tenho uma picape Nash 47,
transformada à partir do Nash 600 a qual adaptei um chassis da GM A20 com quase toda sua mecânica, então, modernizada e muito forte!
Vou terminar sua nova reforma, agora com pintura metálica! Agora por fim, graças à internet, fiquei sabendo q esse veículo ñ passou do prototipo, infelizmente!