Just when a suddenly busy day job combined with a heat wave to produce a certain blogospherical languor around here, reader Daniel Lu sent some photos of a car we'd featured 9 summers ago, still serving its owner with style on a California highway.
It's Dennis Varni's Nash Cooper Airflyte, a stock-looking '51 Nash Rambler Airflyte wagon hiding a modern (as in BMW) Mini Cooper chassis. The Cooper wheels behind Nash hubcaps are a clue, but you'd need to get close to the car to see that, just as we did back in June 2017, when Dennis gave us a tour of his garage*…
Here's that front-drive Mini Cooper powertrain, for anyone who missed our 2017 post...
The bathtub shape of early Fifties Nash styling somehow became friendlier when it was scaled down by stylist Theo Ulrich for the 100-inch wheelbase Rambler series, which first appeared in 1950...
…but that was as a single model, a convertible here shown serving Lois Lane in an episode of TV's Adventures of Superman series that ran from '52 to '58.
The convertible coupe with roof side rails, B and C pillars in place to provide rigidity with Nash's innovative unit body-chassis, was joined by the wagon and Country Club hardtop without the B pillar (below) in 1951. As part of Nash chief George Mason's strategy to avoid associating small size with cheapness, the Ramblers were well-equipped, with standard heaters and radios, and the ragtop came with a power-operated top. Body styles were unchanged for '52.
Nash offered a new Pinin Farina Rambler design in '53 for the same 3 models. In keeping with the "well-equipped" theme, the '53s came with a continental kit, an external metal-covered spare tire to save trunk space. The cars echoed Farina's design for the big '52 Nash line, and lost a bit of their cheery bathtub character, but kept their skirted front wheels, which weren't exposed until '55, after George Mason died. This resulted in a useful decrease in turning circle...
For 1954, Nash launched Rambler 4-door sedans and wagons on a 108" wheelbase to go with the 2-door body styles, and merged with Hudson to form American Motors in May of that year. Hudson-badged Ramblers were offered by Hudson dealers, an early example of what the British called "badge engineering." A prospering US, recently emerged from the Korean War, enjoyed an economic boom that would drive record car sales in 1955, the year of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott. President Eisenhower would sign the Federal-Aid Highway Act in '56, promoting the Interstate highway system. The winds of change were blowing, and compact cars were just part of those changes...
Photo Credits:
All recent photos of the Nash Cooper in action were generously donated by Daniel Lu. Engine and wheel photos are by the author. Other photos were sourced as follows:
Monochrome convertible: Smith & Wesson Forum.
Country Club in color: GAA Classic Cars.
Yellow '53 convertible: Consumer Reports.
Monochrome '54 wagon: American Motors
*Footnote:
Our original post on the Nash Cooper Airflyte was posted June 5, 2017 as "Your Grandpa's Nash Reimagined". Later that year, we posted photo essays on Dennis Varni's other cars, including a Jaguar D-Type, Lamborghini Miura, Graber-bodied Alfa Romeo 2500, Maserati 200S, and a unique Bulletnose Studebaker woody wagon.
No comments:
Post a Comment