The story
Founded by Charles Williams Nash in 1914, in Kenosha.1
History
Nash Motors was founded in 1916 by former General Motors president Charles W. Nash, who acquired the Thomas B. Jeffery Company. Jeffery's best-known automobile was the Rambler whose mass production from a plant in Kenosha began in 1902.
The 1917 Nash Model 671 was the first vehicle produced to bear the name of the new company's founder. Sales for 1918 were 10,283 units. More models were added in 1919, and sales rose to 27,081.
Number of motor vehicles produced by Nash Motors:
The decades of success enjoyed by Nash were said to be due to its focus on building cars "embodying honest worth [at] a price level which held out possibilities of a very wide market."
The four-wheel drive Jeffery Quad truck became an important product for Nash. Approximately 11,500 Quads were built between 1913 and 1919. They served to move material during World War I under severe conditions. The Quad used Mehul differentials with half-shafts mounted above the load-bearing dead axles to drive the hubs through hub-reduction gearing. In addition, it featured four-wheel steering. The Quad achieved the reputation of being the best four-wheel drive truck produced in the country. The newly formed Nash Motors became the largest producer of four-wheel drives. By 1918, capacity constraints at Nash meant the Paige-Detroit Motor Car Company began to assemble the Nash Quad under license and Nash patents. Nash became the leading producer of military trucks by the end of World War I. After the War ended, surplus Quads were used as heavy work trucks in fields such as construction and logging.
Charles Nash convinced the chief engineer of GM's Oakland Division, Finnish-born Nils Erik Wahlberg, to move to Nash's new company. The first Nash engine introduced in 1917 by Wahlberg had overhead valves, which Nash had learned about while working for Buick. Wahlberg is also credited with helping design the flow-through ventilation used since then in nearly every motor vehicle.
Introduced in 1938, Nash's Weather Eye directed fresh, outside air into the car's fan-boosted, filtered ventilation system, where it was warmed (or cooled), and then removed through rearward placed vents. The process also helped to reduce humidity and equalize the slight pressure differential between the outside and inside of a moving vehicle.
Another unique feature of Nash cars was the unequal wheel tracks. The front wheels were set slightly narrower than the rear, thus adding stability and improving cornering. Wahlberg was also an early proponent of wind tunnel testing for vehicles and, during World War II, worked with Theodore (Ted) Ulrich in the development of Nash's radically styled Airflyte models.
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Nash's slogan from the late 1920s and 1930s was "Give the customer more than he has paid for," and the cars lived up to it. Innovations included a straight-eight engine with overhead valves, twin spark plugs, and nine crankshaft bearings in 1930. The 1932 Ambassador Eight had synchromesh transmissions and free wheeling, automatic centralized chassis lubrication, a worm-drive rear end, and its suspension was adjustable inside the car. A longtime proponent of automotive safety, Nash was among the early mid- and low-priced cars that offered four-wheel brakes.
The Nash was a success among consumers, which meant for the company, "selling for a long time has been 100% a production problem... month after month, all the cars that could be produced were sold before they left the factory floor."
Formation of American Motors Corporation
In January 1954, Nash announced the acquisition of the Hudson Motor Car Company as a friendly merger, creating American Motors Corporation (AMC). To improve the financial performance of the combined companies, all production, beginning with the 1955 Nash and Hudson models, would happen at Nash's Kenosha plant. Nash would focus most of its marketing resources on its smaller Rambler models, and Hudson would focus its marketing efforts on its full-sized cars.
One of the first things Mason did as CEO of the new company was to initiate talks with James J. Nance, president of Packard, for parts-sharing arrangements between AMC and Packard. At this time, AMC did not have its own V8 engine, and an agreement was made for the new 320 cu in (5.2 L) Packard V8 engine and Packard's Ultramatic automatic transmission to be used in the 1955 Nash Ambassador and Hudson Hornet models.
In July 1954, Packard acquired Studebaker to form Studebaker-Packard Corporation, however, further talks of a merger between AMC and Packard-Studebaker were cut short when Mason died on 8 October 1954. A week after his death, Mason's successor, George W. Romney, announced "there are no mergers under way either directly or indirectly". Nevertheless, Romney continued with Mason's commitment to buy components from Studebaker-Packard Corporation. Although Mason and Nance had previously agreed that Studebaker-Packard would purchase parts from AMC, it did not do so. Moreover, Packard's engines and transmissions were comparatively expensive, so AMC began development of its own V8 engine, and replaced the outsourced unit by mid-1956.
For the 1955 model year, all the large Nash and Hudson automobiles were based on a Nash-derived shared unitized body shell using styling themes by Pinin Farina, Edmund E. Anderson, and Frank Spring. Each had individual powertrains and separate, non-interchangeable body parts. This mimicked the longtime practice Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) that allowed for maximum manufacturing economy. Anderson set up separate design studios for Nash, Hudson, and Rambler.
George Romney ordered the removal of the front fender skirts on Nashes and Ramblers for the 1955 models. Customers disliked this feature, yet it was reportedly demanded by George Mason, who liked their appearance.
Even with the merger forming AMC, they were held to a total of about four percent of the market and thus were under pressure to lower expenses and tooling costs for new models, perhaps by innovation.
The Nash Metropolitan, marketed under either the Nash or Hudson brands, became a make unto its own in 1957, as did the Rambler. By this point, Rambler sales comprised most of AMC's volume, so George Romney decided to phase out the Nash and Hudson nameplates and focus solely on Rambler. This move would pay off the following year when an economic recession struck the United States and created a strong demand for economical compact cars. Nash and Hudson production ended with the last Hornet made on 25 June, 1957. From 1958 until 1962, Rambler and the Metropolitan were the only brands of cars sold by AMC. By 1965, the Rambler name would begin to be phased out, and AMC would take over as the brand name until the 1988 model year.
In 1970, American Motors acquired Kaiser Jeep (the descendant of Willys-Overland Motors) and its Toledo, Ohio, based manufacturing facilities. In 1979, AMC established a technology partnership with Renault. In 1987, Chrysler Corporation made a public offering to acquire all shares of AMC on the NYSE. The shareholders approved the offer, and AMC became a division of Chrysler Corporation.
From Wikipedia’s article on Nash Motors, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4