1953 Nash Statesman Hardtop Walkaround

Around 1940, Nash cars were nicely styled, fitting well into the preferred mode of the time; I wrote about that here.  But when the American automoble industry launched its postwar redesignes around 1949, Nash became a styling outlier.  I posted about the '49 Nash redesign here and here.

Those 1949-1951 Nashes were bulky, having streamlined shapes that observers, including elementary school age me, called "upside-down bathtub."  Then Nash pulled another Old Switcheroo for its 1952 redesign.  Streamlining was abandoned, replaced by boxiness.

The major carryover feature was that front wheel openings were essentially eliminated, replaced by front fender sheetmetal.

Today's post featues a 1953 Nash Statesman 2-door hardtop, the short-wheelbase (114.25 inches, 1902 mm) alterative to the longer, more expensive Nash Ambassador.

Those enclosed front wheels and rounded slab-sides suggested that Nashes were quite wide.  Let's put that in context.  Nash Statesmen were 78 inches (1981 mm) wide.  Pontiacs were 75.8 inches (1925 mm), DeSotos 74.3 inches (1887 mm), Buick Specials 76.7 inches (1948 mm), and Mercury, also redesigned for 1952, 73.5 inches (1867 mm).  So most competing post- World War 2 cars launched prior to 1952 were two or three or even four inches (50-100 mm) more narrow.  One wider example is the Buick Super, whose width was 80 inches (2032 mm).

The car featured below is a 1953 Nash Statesman Country Club hardtop coupe listed for sale.

Gallery

Pinin Farina was credited by Nash publicity as the designer, though actually most of the design was via Nash's styling group and the NXI concept car designed by William Flajole.

Nash Ambassadors had longer hoods, so had slightly better proportions.

Nash backlight windows retained this three-segment design through model year 1955; most competing brands went to one-segment wraparound backlights earlier.

Basically, a tidy design aside from the width.  Imagine how it would look with flatter, slightly narrower side.

Slab side appearance was somewhat mitigated by the sculpting below the windows and the low, lengthy chrome strip.  Open front wheels would have helped even more.  But Nash president George Mason insisted on covered wheel for (dubious) aerodynamic reasons.

I suspect the width was to provide halfway acceptable turning radius for the enclosed front wheels.  Were front wheels exposed in a normal manner, the sides could have been made narrower without affecting interior width.

The hood was low, front fenders high, both in keeping with early 1950s styling fashion.

The centralized instrument panel was more typical of car brands with considerable sales in regions with different driving positions.  I doubt that applied very much to Nash.