29 Jan A Nash With Some Flash
Outside of the USA, Nash Motors is not one of America’s ‘tip of your tongue’ popular makes, but its history is full of style and innovation that belies its relatively short but fascinating history. The company was founded in 1916 by former General Motors president Charles W Nash when he acquired the Kenosha, Wisconsin-based Thomas B Jeffery Company, makers of Rambler and Jeffery motor cars. The 1917 Nash Model 671 was the first vehicle produced to bear the name of the new company’s founder, and started a few decades of success by focusing its efforts to build cars “… embodying honest worth… (at) a price level which held out possibilities of a very wide market”.
Nash’s marketing pitch in the late-’20s/early-’30s was ‘Give the customer more than he has paid for’, and the cars generally did not disappoint. Ambassador was the name given to the premium model and was first used for the 1927 model year. In mid-1932 Nash established the Ambassador Eight as a stand-alone model offered in a number of body styles, and featured suspension that was adjustable from inside the car. In 1936, Nash introduced the ‘Bed-In-A-Car’ feature, which allowed the car’s interior to be converted into a sleeping compartment. Demand for Nash’s exceeded supply…
In 1937 Charles Nash decided to retire and chose Kelvinator Corporation head George W Mason to succeed him. Mason accepted, but placed one condition on the job: Nash would acquire controlling interest in Kelvinator, which at the time was the leading manufacturer of high-end refrigerators and kitchen appliances in the United States. As of 4 January 1937, the resulting company was known as Nash-Kelvinator. As a brand name, Nash continued representing automobiles for the merged firm.
Despite only having a 40-year history, Nash was quite an innovative company, generally acknowledged as pioneering a through-flow heating/ventilation/air conditioning system (1938), which is the basis of what is still used today. Also in 1938, Nash offered vacuum-controlled gear shifting operated by a small selector lever mounted on the dashboard, immediately below the radio controls. Other advances included unitary construction (1941), a remote control Zenith radio that enabled the driver to change stations at the touch of their toe (1948), and offering seatbelts (1949). The latter were installed in 40 000 cars, but buyers did not want them and requested that dealers remove them. The feature was “met with insurmountable sales resistance” and Nash reported that after one year “only 1 000 had been used” by customers…
The Ambassador is a luxury flagship model produced by Nash Motors from 1927 until 1957. It denoted a top trim level for the first five years, then from 1932 as a standalone model. Ambassadors were lavishly equipped and beautifully constructed, earning them the nickname ‘The Kenosha Duesenberg’.
Civilian car and truck production was curtailed during WWII. When manufacturing resumed in 1946, the pre-war eight-cylinder model was no longer offered, making the long-wheelbase (121-inch – 3 073 mm) Ambassador 600 Series 60 the top of the Nash line-up. The shorter-wheelbase (112-inch – 2 845 mm) 600 Series 40 remained the entry-level model. Boasting a luxury specification, features on offer included a ‘Cruising Gear’ overdrive. And as a claim to fame, in 1947 an Ambassador was the official pace car for the Indianapolis 500 motor race.
The ’48 model was the fourth in the series and had only a couple of ornamentation changes over the ’46 and ’47 models. It was the last Nash to be built on a separate chassis, and rode on coil-spring/wishbone independent front suspension with a beam axle suspended on longitudinal leaf springs at the rear. The engine is a 3 852 cc, overhead valve, 7-main-bearing, inline-6 delivering 83 kW at 3 400 r/min. Gearbox is a three-speed manual and the top speed was around 130 km/h. The model in FMM’s collection is a two-door Brougham. In 1948, Nash reintroduced a 3-passenger Business Coupé, which was effectively a Brougham without a back seat! It was available only in the 600 Series and in DeLuxe trim. It was the company’s lowest-priced car for the year, selling for $1 478.
Post war, Nash was actually one of America’s strongest smaller independent manufacturers. But sales of the smaller firms quickly began to decline in the wake of the domestic Big Three automakers’ (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) advantages in production, distribution and revenue. In 1954, Nash-Kelvinator acquired the Hudson Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, in what was called “a mutually beneficial merger”. The amalgamation became the American Motors Corporation (AMC), which was the largest corporate consolidation to date.
The ongoing use of the Ambassador model name by Nash, and then its successor AMC through the 1974 model year, at the time made it one of the longest-lived automobile nameplates in automotive history.
FMM’s 1948 Nash Ambassador Brougham is currently part of the 20-car ‘All American’ display that can be viewed in Hall C.
