Nash Trucks

The words "Nash truck" may conjure up images of the four-wheel drive Quads that fought in World War I. But the Quad wasn't the only early Nash truck. When Charles Nash took over the Thomas Jeffery Company he inherited a line of Jeffery commercial vehicles that carried the Nash name for a while. Nash trucks continued to be built in very small numbers until 1930.

After World War II, however, Nash Motors re-entered the commercial arena, with a line of "Haul Thrift" trucks, mostly for export. The trucks used front sheet metal modified from the 1947-8 Nash Ambassador, like the one in which Cannonball Baker paced the 1947 Indy 500. A brief run of short-wheelbase chassis was fitted with Ashton wrecker bodies and issued to Nash dealers. A few of them are still around. The export trucks generally had much longer wheelbases.

Aside from this run of trucks, which extended as late as 1954, the only postwar commercial Nash was the 1951-54 Rambler Deliveryman, a station wagon with no back seat. It took the purchase of Kaiser Jeep in 1970 for American Motors, Nash Motors' successor, to re-enter the truck market with the Jeep Gladiator pickup.

Imagine my surprise, then, when one Sunday-morning-after-Hershey when I spotted this 1948 Nash "Quad" filling up at a Texaco station. It was, the owner told me, dropped on the chassis of a late model Chevy 4x4. The back of the body was cut off to mount a fifth wheel, allowing it to tow a trailer so large that it hauled both living quarters and a dirt track race car.

The 1948 Nash trucks appearing in this feature were photographed some years ago at Ed Moore's eclectic Bellingham Auto Sales in Massachusetts. They have both been sold, but Ed has plenty more treasures available.

F-Cars

Ford's blockbuster Mustang, of course, begged for a response, but it was three years before The General could raise it. When he did, it was a two-parter, the so-called F-body twins, Chevy's Camaro and Pontiac's Firebird. The Firebird, of course, was a tribute to the far-out Firebird I, a concept car of 1952. F-cars were available in plain vanilla and many exotic flavors, from SS to Z-28, HO to Trans Am. Racing driver John Fitch tried his own tuned version, the Fitch Firebird.

A second generation F-mobile debuted in 1970. An alternative to the Trans Am was Firebird's Formula 400. More civilized than the Z28 was the Rally Sport Camaro. Available only as a coupe, the Gen 2 soon sported a T-roof option.

A Gen-3 series arrived for 1982. Equipped with a nifty glass hatchback, Gen-3s came in all stages of tune from four-cylinder to big honking V8s. They were succeeded in 1993 by a fourth generation of Camaros and Firebirds, and convertibles returned, but after 2002 it was all over. Rumors of a front-drive F-car proved false, and the genre died out with a whimper.

F-cars have long been popular with restorers and rodders. Some, like this tricked-out '69 Z-28, go way over the top, with hyperactivity disorder and instrument obsession. But there's a junker syndrome at work, too. It seems that everywhere I go I see dormant and derelict third-gen F-cars. From my office window I can see an '82 Camaro T-top (not mine), and within a five mile radius are '84, '85 and '91 Camaros, an '86 Firebird and an '88-ish Trans Am. They're all restorable cars, some for sale at bargain prices, but few show the slightest signs of work in progress.

GM's been showing a new Camaro Concept lately, which may become a production reality soon. I hope it does, but in the mean time won't somebody please start restoring all those disabled third-generation veterans?

The Artful Dodge

I've long considered the 1941 Dodges attractive. My cousin Woody had a '41 sedan that was a good-looking, if not exciting car. The 1942s were more striking, in a complex sort of way - almost Cadillac-like in the grille. But all that was lost after the war, with the eggcrate-faced D-24 models built from 1946 into 1949.

Chrysler Corporation's all-new 1949 cars were late in coming. Not until March did they appear, by which time their advances seemed old hat, not just by comparison to Ford and GM but to the independents as well. They were designed by engineers, not stylists, for maximum interior room. Chrysler Corporation president K.T. Keller felt motorists needed not just headroom but hatroom. Although the bodies were narrower than the fender lines, they offered untold width - all the better for smoking. Brochures showed a fairly dated style of interior and touted ease of entry and exit.

In hindsight, the claim of "flashing pickup" seems ludicrous, and of course we know that Gyro-Matic didn't shift automatically - your foot was an important part of the mechanism, but at least it did shift, which Dodge's earlier Fluid Drive didn't.

But at least Dodge offered some interesting models. The upscale Coronet had a woodie station wagon, convertible coupe and 8-passenger long-wheelbase sedan, in addition to the usual club coupe and four-doors. The entry-level Wayfarer was perhaps most innovative of all, with ChryCorp's three-passenger business coupe, a bustle-backed two-door, and, most enigmatic of all, a true roadster. The roadster's removable plastic side windows were unpopular, so later in the year vent windows and roll-up side windows were added.

If I were to covet a '49 Dodge, I might seek out a Wayfarer roadster, perhaps one with a hemi. Or maybe the business coupe. On the other hand, I think I'd rather have a 1941 3-passenger coupe.

Common Denominator

We have a winnah! First to report in with the correct answer to last week's "list quiz" was Jonathan Baker from Australia, who was also the only one with the correct answer. With no equivocation he said the common denominator in the ten cars was their Continental engines. Actually, it's more accurate to say "Continental-derived," because some of the cars didn't actually have their engines built by the Continental Engine Company.

A blatant hint in the list was the Continental Flyer, a car actually built by the Continental Engine Company. We told you about that back in February 2005. Flint and Jordan are well known users of bought-in engines; the '27 Jordans used the Continental 8-S, the Flint E-55 a 6-E (there's no rhyme nor reason to Continental numbering - both the 8-S and 6-E are sixes).

DuPont was a luxury car maker, but did not manufacture engines. The eight-cylinder DuPonts, Model G from 1929 on, used an L-head Continental 12-K, but added their own cylinder head cover that made it look like an overhead valve unit.

Hudson is known for outsourcing very few parts, but Hudson didn't actually build engines until the Super Six of 1916. Until then, all Hudson engines were bought in from Continental. Hudson historian Don Butler says that Hudson designed the Six-54 engine for Continental to build. Marshall Naul, however, identifies the Six-54's engine as a Continental 6-C, also used by Colby, Howard and Pathfinder. They could both be right. Automotive history is like that.

When the Graham brothers took over the Paige-Detroit Motor Car Company, they inherited the Paige product line, which used a mix of Continental, Lycoming and their own in-house powerplants. The Grahams took over manufacture of the sixes, but used Continental eights for a few years. The economy Crusader model introduced in 1936, however, used a bought-in six-cylinder Continental C-600.

Kaiser, too, manufactured engines, but rather than design their own took a tried-and-true Continental six and made changes to the valves and combustion chambers. They even leased a Continental plant to build it. After purchasing Willys in 1953, Kaiser 226 cid sixes began to appear in Willys trucks and station wagons. Ironically, Willys had supplied fours and smaller sixes to Kaiser since 1951 for the Henry J.

Federal Motor Truck Company also bought engines from outside, Hercules for their lighter trucks, and Continental for the larger ones, from Model 45 up.

So what about the Ferguson tractor? Well, when Harry Ferguson and Henry Ford were still on good terms, their Ford Model 9N (sometimes called "Ford Ferguson," properly "Ford with Ferguson System" hydraulics) used Ford engines. When the handshake partnership broke up and Ferguson turned to the courts, the new Ferguson tractor was powered by a Continental Z-120 engine, a 120-cubic-inch overhead valve four. These were known as TO20 models (Tractor Overseas), while in England a TE20 (Tractor English) used an engine of the same size from the Standard Vanguard. We got to know this engine in Triumph TR sports cars. British Fergusons were also early users of diesel power.

For further reading about Continental engines, seek out Special Interest Autos #38, the January-February 1977 issue. In it, Marshall Naul gives chapter and verse on Continental's US-built passenger car engines. Today Teledyne Continental Motors builds piston and turbine engines for light aircraft.

Lists

As old year turns to new, journalists, particularly, have an obsession with lists: Ten Best, Ten Worst, Ten Most Significant, Ten Things I Hate, Ten Predictions for the New Year, ad nauseam. Truth to tell, I'm sick of lists, other people's lists, lists that have no real purpose except to spill their listers' fatuous opinions.

On the other hand, I'm a compulsive lister. I'm always making lists, usually based on some criteria of facts, not opinion. So to usher in 2008, here's my own list. What I want you to do, faithful CarPorters, is to figure out what it's a list of: What do these ten motor vehicles have in common?

1913 Hudson Six-54

1929 DuPont Model G Waterhouse sedan

1927 Jordan Tomboy

1951 Kaiser Model 512

Ferguson TO-20 tractor

1933 Continental Flyer

1957 Willys Jeep station wagon

1925 Flint Model E-55

1936 Graham Crusader

1946 Federal Model 45

You can click on the thumbnails to get a larger picture, but it won't help you much. When you've figured it out, email the CarPort with your answer. All will be revealed on Wednesday, January 9th, and enviable prizes await those who correctly name the list.

As Kit Foster's CarPort begins a fourth year of weekly publication, we wish you all a happy, prosperous and serendipitous 2008.