This story begins with a gal named Rebecca, childhood friend of my wife. For several years she’s been restoring her grandparent’s old farmhouse in western Oregon, which she now owns. Last summer she contacted us for input: She’d noticed that some of the other farms in her area had old vehicles by the road that they would decorate for holidays. She not seen something like this before and thought it was clever. As her grandfather had operated a service station in the area, she was thinking of setting up an old car at their former place as a kind of tribute, maybe with a gas pump. She wanted to know, was this too weird? I ***ured her not only was in not weird, but it’s kind of regarded as high art in my circles. And maybe I could help, because… Meanwhile, Hamber @Hitchhiker was in the process of moving his shop. With the help of his hotrod network, he’d been transferring equipment, vehicles, and vast array of inventory to his new location all summer (and even as I type, he’s not done yet). As part of the crew, trust me when I say it’s been kind of overwhelming. And with time running short, some undeniably cool stuff was sadly destined for s****, including… …this early ‘20s Nash: Talk about serendipity! I quickly brokered a deal whereby, for what I consider a bargain price, we would re***emble the old Nash, haul it to Rebecca’s farm and set it up for her. So what follows is a summary of that adventure…
Of course you would, @anthony myrick. Of course you would. Bear with me everyone. The Hamb is bonking at the size of my image files. I have to make some edits. More to come soon.
We got started by winching the Nash onto a trailer and hauling it to the shop. The thing was more-or-less held together by moss, and thankfully it didn’t fall apart in the process. Like most early ‘20s tourers, the body is tin tacked to a wooden structure, now hopelessly rotten. Here’s the crew, ***essing what needs to happen. That’s Hitchhiker (aka Matt) in the foreground, and behind him are two members of the crew, also named Matt. (And yes, this is often confusing.) Step one: Shove everything more or less into place and weld the doors on. We didn’t have a driver’s door, but we found a slightly larger skin off something else (who knows?) and welded it on. (Lord, don't even get me started on the lack of welding gloves. My old-guy safety suggestions fall on increasingly deaf ears.) With doors welded on, we shoved everything again until it was even more more-or-less in place, and welded in some quick-and-dirty bracing. There’s cross-bracing with some old s**** rod, flat-steel brackets from frame to body, and a couple hunks of square tubing holding the frame up from the axel to compensate for a missing leaf spring. Not pretty up close, but sound enough for yard art. At this point, we all stepped back and agreed it pretty much looked like a car again. (I was originally going to say it looked like something Anthony would drive, but he stole my thunder.)
More to come once the Hamb server settles down. It's not accepting images at the moment. We'll get there.
I find it hard to believe that there are people on the HAMB that would even remotely think of s****ping that car
Now to me, as a hotrod guy, I like the exposed engine look. But Rebecca insisted she wanted a hood. The original hood was long gone. But we found something else in the s**** pile. WARNING: This is the point at which all cl***ic Cadillac lovers should look away. Here it is, an old hood off a BIG Cadillac. Likely a V12, maybe even a V16. The poor thing has been lugged to multiple swap meets and posted online, receiving no love. It’s fate was now sealed. I was tasked with destroying the thing. Everyone thought it was fitting, since I run a modified 10-panel LaSalle hood on my speedster. I started by cutting roughly 10 inches off the back, reducing the 10-panel to an 8-panel. Then I sliced the top so we could resize the width by overlapping the two halves. (I wore gloves.) Here it is, roughed in. It looks the part. And here it is from the driver's side, where you can also see our close-enough driver's door solution.
I get what you're saying, but... we had absolutely nowhere to put it. It had been offered around repeatedly, with no takers. It should have been gone months ago, but Matt couldn't bring himself to s**** it. With time on the old place running out, it was looking grim. That's why everybody was so delighted when this deal went down, and so many guys were willing to donate free labor to save the thing.
Nice reuse of the Nash, we’d like to save them all but it’s not really worth it to restore. Lucky I didn’t know about it as our new place has lots of space!
First of all, what I am about to add to this thread isn't an attempt to hijack @ClarkH and his amazing input to this thread, on the contrary, Clark and @Hitchhiker (Matt) are friends of mine, that I met through the vast channels of the H.A.M.B. I feel a bit guilty as I have not been going up to Matt's place and helping move stuff like Clark and Texas Matt have, but its because I have been involved in a big project here at my place instead. Bravo to you Clark and both Matt's and anybody else that has been pitching in to move all of Matt's stuff out of the old shop and into the new shop there in Mount Vernon Washington. Both Matt and Clark received a variety of stuff out of my collection of stuff that I had here, and it makes me smile to know that over at Clark's, there is a magnificent piece of yard art out in front of his place that came from me! Same as with Matt, both my 47 Dodge business coupe and my travel all ambulance were both in his hands and both have found new owners, so that was two vehicles that he didn't have to move to the new shop. I did help Matt out by removing the late 1800's Steger and Sons upright piano out of the new shop, so that helped out a bit, space wise. The piano is being heavily modified to be a unique piece of yard art for my own place here in Seattle. I did make a special laminated place mat, out of a photo I took of the piano, so that it can be stuck on the wall at Matt's new shop. So a big bravo and job well done on the Nash and its journey to a new home, to be a very cool kick *** piece of automotive yard art, at a place where it will be appreciated by all that see it! Thanks from Dennis.
Delivery day came, and Matt picked me up for the 200-mile drive south. We took the hood off so it wouldn’t launch itself somewhere along I-5. Only two welds broke in transit, which was less than expected. Thankfully, Rebecca has a small tractor we could use for offloading and positioning. She’d already had her boys build a small platform out of old pavers for it to sit on. The platform was, uh, more-or-less stable. A couple western Oregon winters will settle it in. Once positioned, we attached the hood with sheet metal screws. And here it is. Rebecca has named the car Matilda, as in Matt-ilda, in honor of the guys who made it happen. (Clark-ilda would be stupid.) The ground is freshly regraded with a new retaining wall built, so nothing’s growing yet. Her long-term plan is to add an old gas pump, some large gas-and-oil signs on the building wall, and a bunch of flowering plants. Should be pretty cool. That’s all for now. I’m helping her look for an old pump, and am keeping tabs on the project from afar. Hopefully I can post some additional pics in the future as it progresses.
Hey @ClarkH Keep in touch with me, and when some lenses can be found for those old headlight buckets, I will be happy to donate a couple of solar powered units that can be rigged, so that the headlights will light up at night time! Thanks from Dennis.
Funny you mention the lights. Rebecca actually likes the googly-eyed look of those bent buckets. You know the song Waltzing Matilda? This is more of a Drunken Matilda.
That thing looks too good to be sacrificed to the car gods! Well, good that you saved it. I had a 25 Nash 2dr many moons ago
Thanks. I'll take all these "looks too nice" comments as a compliment to our patching and misdirection prowess. Looking at this car is like looking at a rotten egg. The shell may seem OK, but trust me, you wouldn't want to eat it.
Cool project. My only comment is where can I get one of those rear axles? Neat how the side tubes bolt on.
If those wheels are 25” rim, that would make this a ‘23-‘24 Nash (motor, radiator, firewall, and cowl look correct to me). Nash offered 3 touring car models, 4 p***enger sport, 5 p***enger, and 7 p***enger. All 3 models had flat top doors tho. Rear doors are unusual…
It’s nice to see what it became of. Matt really wanted me to haul it home to put in my back yard next to my Dodge touring car, but my work schedule had my energy level too low to get it done.
I'm not huge on cars as yard art but this car is better preserved now in its new spot than it was before so it's probably a good thing, I can't dislike that. This one's pretty ideally suited to it too, I doubt anyone was going to do anything more with it anyway.
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