American Iron in British Togs by tallpindo
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Description
An unlikely sports racing entry appeared at the campground venue at Many Glacier area of the Waterton-Glacier Peace park. Wild cranking sounds came from across the bushes where the MG had appeared in years past. The dew had been heavy. My father walked over and talked with the driver then came back to report the car would not start. I was a little less naive by then and went over to “see what I could do.” The nearest repair garage was a long way away. The car was a Nash; One of those unibody cars that was mocked for being a “bathtub.” When the owner turned the key, I could see flashes of sparks crossing over from the sparkplug connectors not from the wires themselves which had become suspect after 1957 for not having wire cores and being nylon braid immersed in carbon black to act as resistors for radio noise suppression. That is what my father had looked for. He was a radio amateur and he used resistor plugs. As you can in the image above, the sparkplugs are sunk deep into the iron of the head in bores unlike the tubes in a Chrysler FirePower V-8. They are not extended reach with a long- threaded section. First, I wiped off the plug connectors and any condensation in the deep bores. Then I got some black electrician’s tape from my father’s tool box. The tape now was thin plastic with one shiny side and one sticky side. The old linen soaked in asphalt type with two sticky sides that never was dry was also in the tool box. I considered it as it was easier to wrap into the deep bores. Okay, one wrap of that and one of the newer. The engine started immediately and the owner raced the engine a bit. I told the owner it was a temporary repair and he should get new wires installed as soon as he got home.
I had a past with the Nash. One of my customers had lived in the city earlier and had a large Nash. By the time I saw it, it was totally rusted away on the bottom and it had no frame. The family had a son who had been born with a heart defect. After collecting at the house a few times, the boy told his mother he wanted to deliver papers like I did. He convinced her he could be my substitute like when I went West with my parents and sister for the summer. His mother let him ride his bike and for the first year it was great. He was having the time of his life. Then came Winter and he only got a few times like Thanksgiving and Christmas when he would get his mother to drive him in the Nash. The second year his fitness faded and he passed away. His mother was scathing in her criticism for letting him be a boy for a while.
The second form of Nash was a Metropolitan. This was a rather tiny car with a Austin four engine that stood up on four tiny wheels. One of the girls in my class drove it about after her older brother and father had used it for a time. I spent some time building the Homecoming float with Bonnie. She was a striking brunette with short hair that favored Pairs fashions like “the bag.” I remember her dance routine on stage. Sort a side to side jig with lyrics, “get me a jig saw, better than a buck saw --.””
This image is recent to overlay the model I built of an Austin-Healey Sprite on the word “Healey”. How wonderful to find a Nash-Healey among the cars on show locally at a shopping area. A bit heavier than an Austin-Healey and lacking the underslung frame of the 100-4 and 100-6 and later 3000 sports car or the silliness of the “bug eye” and then uptight proper of 1964 Sprites this car invokes the magic of LeMans on its engine sticker.
What racing heritage did I see in Nash? How about a Midget that won the heat races against V-8-60 powered cars on alcohol at the ¼ mile Owendale speedway? That was a Rambler flathead six, the one with an integral intake manifold. The image above clearly has overhead valves and a sheet metal rocker cover. There are two SU carburetors on the other side.
Comments (5)
eekdog
Clean straight six.
Richardphotos
when I was a member of a racing crew and the car at that time was in the Sportsmen class just below Nascar with the driver being Jimmy “Fireball” Finger. they were doing 195 mph plus on the straights. the manager of the race track at College Station had a Mazda with a rotary engine that could pass some of the cars in the corners at a racetrack in Austin. I went and seen him race in Monterrey. His name is Neil Upchurch.
giulband
Good shot !!
tallpindo
My neighbor in Seal Beach, CA had a Mazda RX-3 twin rotor which I watched him rebuild in his garage after a few years. At one time a company named Orbital in Australia was going to supply engines to the big 3 --- now the biblical. The king slew all of his advisors on the flat rock except one. Let me check the number of the citation I'm sure Probe is not it nor is continuous casting. BING has no idea what I'm quoting but knows Neil Upchurch retired after 53 years from racing.
Osper
No computer needed. Just good old fashioned common sense. Neat pic!