Behind the Scenes

from NOIR IN MY CAR

The 1953 Nash Healey as driven by Marco X. Pollo in Noir in My Car

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Caution: The following may be only of interest to gear heads, but if you drive a car, have ridden in a car, or admired a car from afar, you should know that many of the comforts we enjoy today in automobiles came out of the Nash Motor Company, manufacturer of the Nash Healy. Unfortunately, we take many of these innovations for granted. Secondly, there’s a Kansas connection here, a connection to my home state, and details I didn’t fully know until I finished my research.

So, buckle up for some “Behind the Scenes” details about Marco X. Pollo’s Nash Healey.

In the first chapter of the NOIR IN MY CAR series, I introduced Marco X. Pollo’s custom set of wheels, a 1953 Nash Healey. I could have chosen any number of unique and exotic cars for him to drive, or even a mundane beater of a car, but I thought the Nash Healey fit his personality.

The car is an original, it’s rare, and unique and was born from a company known for making radios and refrigerators. Now that’s an odd combination and it doesn’t sound very sexy. However, on a personal note, my best friend once owned a Nash Metropolitan (that was a wild ride and my first introduction to Nash) and I’ve heard from readers who also drove a Nash at some point in their lives. Secondly, this story winds through the byways of Kansas (my home state), up through Michigan and New York City—tiny aspects of which I knew but not in great detail.

THE NASH HEALEY

The Nash Healey was the first post-World War II sports car made by an American automaker, beating out the 1953 Chevrolet Corvette as America’s first genuine post-war sports car. The two-seat Ford Thunderbird, not exactly a sports car, didn’t arrive in showrooms until 1955.

As a sports car, the Nash Healey placed third in the 1952 Le Mans 24-hour race in France behind two prototype factory made Mercedes-Benz race cars. At the time, the car was fast averaging 90 miles per hour with an inline six-cylinder engine.

The brainchild for the Nash Healey was born in a chance meeting between Nash Motor Company President George Mason and British sports car maker Donald Healey as both were traveling on the RMS Queen Elizabeth ocean liner in late 1949.

The first Nash Healey was an aluminum convertible body with a three-speed transmission, optional overdrive with leather interior. It debuted as a 1951 model at the 1950 Paris Auto Show, and later that year at the Chicago Auto Show. The price tag was $4,063.

The car was re-designed by Pininfarina, an Italian custom car design firm, which designed Italy’s Ferrari cars. The new steel-body two-seater was created with a lower windshield, rear fender bulges, small tailfins and an oval grille. They also upped the horsepower to 135.

In 1953, 162 cars were sold at $5,908 per unit with the coupe version selling for $6,399, a staggering amount in the early 1950s. It’s estimated that more than half of all Nash Healeys survived and are usually seen only at classic car shows.

Marco X. Pollo drives the coupe version, a removal hardtop for that convertible ride. I’ll explain how he came about the car in a subsequent episode.

In 2020, a restored Nash Healey with 63,658 miles on its odometer, similar to the one in the photograph, was auctioned by RM Sotheby’s in Elkhart, Indiana for an estimated $120,000-$140,000.

George Reeves, the actor who played Superman and Clark Kent on TV, drove a Nash Healey in four episodes. That car was owned by actor Dick Powell.

Actor George Reeves driving a Nash Healey in an TV episode of Superman

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SIDE NOTE:

Nash Motors Company was headquartered in Kenosha, Wisconsin (1916-1937). The company was founded by General Motors President Charles W. Nash, who acquired the Thomas B. Jeffery Company, manufacturer of the Rambler automobile. The Nash Company also made Quad trucks, the first four-wheel drive truck produced in America, and which played a key role moving material during World War I.

Charles W. Nash (1864-1948)

In its early years, the Nash Company innovated with straight-eight engines with overhead valves, twin spark plugs, and nine crankshaft bearings, synchromesh transmissions, free wheeling, automatic chassis lubrication, and adjustable suspension inside the car, as well as four-wheel brakes. Consumers loved Nash automobiles and bought them up before they left the factory floor.

In 1925, Nash bought the Mitchell Motor Car Company in Racine, Wisconsin, which made and sold Ajax cars. The brand was renamed the Nash Light Six. The company even offered Ajax owners a kit to convert their Ajax into a Nash Light Six. The kit included new hubcaps, a radiator badge, and other necessary parts.

In 1937, Nash Motors merged with Kelvinator, the appliance company and leading manufacturer of refrigerators, to become the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation. At the time, this was the largest merger of two American companies in two different industries.

Other automotive innovations followed including air heating/ventilation systems, vacuum shifting with a small gear lever mounted on the dashboard instead of the floor, hinged rear seatbacks to create a “bed-in-a-car” feature, leading to fully reclining front seats, a thermostat, independent coil spring front suspension, sealed beam headlights, curved safety glass windshields, and in 1949, Nash became the first American car with seat belts as a factory option. Lot of elements we take for granted today.

Interestingly, seatbelts were installed in 40,000 cars but buyers didn’t want them and dealers had to remove them. Americans didn’t accept seatbelts until the 1980s and 1990s. It took decades of public education to win over drivers and passengers.

After Nash had success with its larger Nash Statesman 2-door sedan, the company decided it could reach a larger market by building smaller cars and introduced the Nash Rambler in 1950. Then the company signed an agreement with Austin Motor Company of the UK to build Nash’s new subcompact car, the Metropolitan, introduced in 1954.

While the Metropolitan was considered “subcompact,” that term wasn’t used at that time. That word wasn’t used until 1960 to define an automobile smaller than a compact car.

The Metropolitan’s wheelbase was shorter than the VW Beetle was marketed as the “second car in a two-car family, for mom taking kids to school or shopping or for dad to drive to the railroad station to catch a ride to work.” You can see the obvious East Coast bias here.

In 1954, Nash merged with Hudson to form the American Motors Corporation. The Nash and Hudson lines were phased out with focus on the Rambler and Metropolitan as stand-alone brands.

When George Mason died, he was succeeded by George W. Romney – yes, that Romney, who was chairman and president of the American Motors Corporation (AMC), then governor of Michigan from 1963-1969, served as third secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the father of Mitt Romney, US Senator from Utah, former governor of Massachusetts, and the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

Romney made the mistake of removing the front fender skirts on 1955 Nashes and Ramblers which angered customers. Romney then phased out the Nash and Hudson nameplates and focused the company solely on the Rambler model. By 1965, the Rambler was phased out, and AMC took over the brand name until the 1988 model year.

In 1970, AMC acquired Kaiser Jeep and nine years later set up a technology partnership with Renault. In 1987, Chrysler Corporation purchased all shares of AMC.

THE KANSAS CONNECTION

The Chrysler Corporation was founded in 1925 by Walter Chrysler (1875-1940) from the remains of the Maxwell Motor Company. Walter is a native of my home state of Kansas. He was born in Wamego and grew up in Ellis, Kansas where his boyhood home is a museum. Chrysler began his career as a machinist and railroad mechanic in Ellis and earned a mechanical degree from a correspondence program.

Walter P. Chrysler (1875-1940)

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He moved frequently to Wellington, Kansas, Denver, Colorado, and Cheyenne, Wyoming to round out his railroad knowledge.

His automotive career began when he was introduced to Charles W. Nash, then president of the Buick Motor Company, and started work as production manager for Buick in Flint, Michigan.

William C. Durant, founder of General Motors, so badly wanted Chrysler to stay on and run Buick that he offered him a salary of $10,000 per month (equivalent to $280,000 in 2023) for three years, with a $500,000 bonus at the end of each year. Chrysler was so shocked at the offer he asked Durant to repeat it, which he did.

Chrysler ran Buick for three more years and left to turnaround the Willys-Overland Motor Company in Toledo, Ohio. He demanded and received a salary of $1 million (equivalent to $17.6 million in 2023). He left Willys in 1921 and bought a controlling interest in the ailing Maxwell Motor Company. He phased out Maxwell and created the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit in 1925.

By 1927, The Chrysler Corporation was the third-largest car manufacturer in the United States, after Ford and General Motors.

In addition to creating the Chrysler brand of car, the company created Plymouth and DeSoto, then bought the Dodge Brothers and renamed it Dodge. That same year, he financed construction of the Art Deco Chrysler Building in New York City and in 1928 was named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year.”

THE CHRYSLER BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY

Chrysler said he designed and built the building not to become the company’s headquarters but as a real estate investment for his children. The family sold the building in 1953 for $52 million, which included an annex and the nearby Graybar Building.

1953, that was the same year Marco X. Pollo’s Nash Healey was built.