From Metropolitans to Kenosha Cadillacs: Nash turns 100

1946 Nash Ambassador. Photo by the author.

Charles Nash, by most accounts, got along all right with Charles Durant. He just knew he couldn’t continue to work with the man who’d brought him into the automotive business, so in the summer of 1916 he struck out on his own, a move that led to the formation of one of the longest-lived American independent carmakers, Nash Motor Company, 100 years ago today.

The fractured working relationship between Nash and Durant resulted not from any bad blood between the two, rather from an ideological difference. As Lawrence Gustin wrote in his biography of Durant, Nash “had a great respect for money… Durant had no regard for money, except as a plaything, as a tool for empire building.” So despite a rise from cushion stuffer in a carriage factory to president of General Motors, all thanks to Durant’s guidance, Nash resigned from GM shortly after Durant leveraged Chevrolet to buy out GM.

“When Durant regained control, his policies and mine were so at variance that I resigned and started my own company,” Gustin quoted Nash. “I hate to tell the salary that was offered to me by Durant if I would stay. It was more than any man’s worth. But I had wanted for years to build my own car.”

The fastidious Nash wouldn’t just dive right into the thick of carmaking, however. Instead, he considered purchasing one of a couple existing carmakers, including Packard, and on July 29, 1916, he reportedly spent $9 million to buy the Jeffrey (nee Rambler) car company in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Despite putting his name on the building, he continued to build Jeffreys for a time. The first Nashes, overhead-valve six-cylinders designed by former Oakland engineer Nils Erik Wahlberg, arrived in 1918.

Both production and profit increased steadily over the next several years, even as Nash experimented with a high-end companion car, the Lafayette, and one on the opposite end of the market, the Ajax. By the Thirties, Charles Nash’s conservative business leadership paid off, allowing the carmaker to go upmarket with twin ignition, eight-cylinder cars, larger wheelbases (up to 133 inches), and modern designs by Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky.

1940 Nash Ambassador Eight Special Cabriolet. Photo by David LaChance.

But by the mid-Thirties, with 20 years of running his own auto business under his belt, Charles Nash decided to retire. He himself scouted his successor, George Mason at Kelvinator, whose only condition for accepting the job was that Nash buy the refrigerator company. Under Mason’s leadership, Nash-Kelvinator went on to introduce its WeatherEye air conditioning system, popularize the carmaker’s famous fold-flat seats, and build some of the first unit-body cars in the industry.

Mason – who championed the compact and sub-compact Rambler and Metropolitan, recruited Pinin Farina to style the Nash lineup, and teamed up with Donald Healey to produce the Nash-Healey sports car – also made the decision to merge Nash with another independent carmaker, ultimately Hudson, in 1954 to form American Motors. Like the Jeffrey nameplate, the Nash name continued for another few years under its successor, through the 1957 model year.

1957 Nash Rambler Rebel. Photo by the author.

At least one concours, the Lake Bluff Concours d’Elegance of Southwest Michigan, will celebrate this year’s Nash anniversary with a special class. Meanwhile, the Nash Car Club of America’s 2016 Grand NASHional will include five days’ worth of events.

The Lake Bluff Concours will take place August 13 in St. Joseph, Michigan. For more information, visit ConcoursSWMI.com. The NCCA Grand NASHional will take place September 14 to 18 in Richmond, Virginia. For more information, visit NashCarClub.org.

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