NASH

Nash Motors was founded in 1916 by the former General Motors president Charles W. Nash, who bought the Thomas B. Jeffery Company, whose best-known car was the Rambler. The first car to carry the Nash name, the Model 671, appeared in 1917 with an overhead-valve engine designed by Nils Erik Wahlberg. The four-wheel-drive Jeffery Quad truck was important to the company: about 11,500 were built between 1913 and 1919, and Nash became the leading producer of military trucks by the end of the First World War.

Nash introduced an automobile heating and ventilation system in 1938 (the Weather Eye), unibody construction in 1941, seat belts in 1950, a U.S.-built compact car in 1950 and an early muscle car in 1957. From 1937 it was the automotive division of Nash-Kelvinator, and in 1954 it merged with Hudson to form American Motors Corporation; Nash automobiles were built under AMC until 1957.