The Nash-Healey was painted schoolbus yellow when Mike acquired it in August 1979. It had no rust but needed a fair amount of bodywork. Text and photos copyright Michael Lamm 2012
So I had this 1953 Plymouth convertible, the subject of my previous chapter, and I’d put an ad in Hemmings to sell it. This was in the summer of 1979.
One of the first people to respond was a Mopar enthusiast in Sebastopol, and he had a 1952 Nash-Healey roadster he was likewise trying to sell. He was asking $5,500 for the Nash-Healey, and I was asking $3,500 for the Plymouth, so he suggested we come to some sort of trade arrangement.
I drove up to Sebastopol in the Plymouth, a distance of about 140 miles, and he checked out my car while I checked out his. He liked the Plymouth, I liked the Nash-Healey, and we agreed to a swap. I’d give him the Plymouth plus $2,000. At that point, I had exactly $1,119.71 in the Plymouth, so I was basically getting the Nash-Healey for $3119.71 (approximately $10,000 in 2010 dollars).
We agreed to do the actual car exchange a couple of weekends later, in the town of Fairfield, about halfway between Stockton and Sebastopol. We’d both bring our cars and pink slips, I’d hand him a cashier’s check for the $2,000, and we’d make the swap at a McDonald’s on the east end of town.
Having driven the Nash-Healey in and around Sebastopol, I knew it had problems. The carburetors needed adjustment at the very least. On hard acceleration, the engine spat back as if it were running lean. Then, too, I could smell coolant, and there was dried radiator drool in the engine compartment, telling me that car had a history of overheating. Nor was the Warner Gear overdrive working, and the front suspension seemed to be riding low on the driver’s side. I didn’t know at the time what that was all about, but I’d soon find out.
We made the exchange at McDonald’s, and I started driving back toward Stockton on Highway 12 in a car I mistrusted from the very beginning. I’d been totally confident of the Plymouth, but this Nash-Healey already had me wondering whether we’d make it the 60 miles home.
There’s little along Highway 12 between Fairfield and the next town, Rio Vista, except 25 miles of treeless, rolling hills and a lot of wind. The ambient temperature on that afternoon stood at 100, normal for August. It’s a narrow, two-lane road, with lots of blind dips and crests. That stretch is known locally as Blood Alley. Drivers use the downgrades to build up speed for the next hill, trucks especially, and traffic tries to move quickly, even on a Sunday.
My first problem with the Nash-Healey was the lean misfire. The twin Carter YH sidedraft carburetors just didn’t want to accept a lot of gas. So I had to get up as much speed as possible on downgrades and then feather the accelerator on the other side. Traffic behind me wasn’t thrilled.
That’s when I started to smell coolant. The temp needle hadn’t budged, which, to me, meant the gauge wasn’t working. But no matter, the engine was definitely heating up. About halfway between Fairfield and Rio Vista, the engine started to sputter, and then it simply quit. I knew there was plenty of gas in the tank.
I settled onto the shoulder just where Route 113 crosses Highway 12 and sat there for a few minutes, listening. I could hear steam rumbling inside the block, but no hissing. I got out and lifted the hood, and it was like opening an oven. The heat slapped me right in the face.
It was then that I noticed, for the first time, the wooden clothespin attached to the fuel line. That made it obvious that the Nash-Healey had suffered vapor lock before. Why people put clothespins on fuel lines to ward off vapor lock I have no idea, but it’s a common “cure” that’s never worked for me. Nothing to do, but sit with the hood open and wait for things to cool. A number of passersby stopped and asked if they could help, but, nice as they were, there was nothing they could do.
The Nash-Healey as Racer
If you’re not familiar with the history of Nash-Healeys, here’s a quick primer. They were built between 1951 and 1954, an international effort that began when Nash commissioned British race-car constructor Donald Healey to design and supply them with Nash-Healey sports cars. The first generation for 1951 had aluminum roadster bodies, and the second, 1952-1954, styled and built by Pinin Farina in Italy, had steel roadster and coupe bodies.
Nash-Healeys beat the first Corvette to market by two years and the Thunderbird by four. Nash hoped the Nash-Healey would spark showroom traffic. To establish a reputation, Nash supported an international racing program. To everyone’s surprise, the car did amazingly well.
The Nash-Healey’s effort centered on Le Mans. In 1950, a pre-production Nash-Healey placed fourth overall. In 1951, the Nash-Healey team came in sixth. Then in 1952, the year of my car, it finished first in class and third overall, behind two Mercedes 300 SLs. The 1952 Le Mans Nash-Healey ran a special aluminum hemispherical head that upped horsepower to around 200. The 1952 effort marked the peak of Nash-Healey’s racing success and the best American effort at Le Mans until Ford’s showing in 1966. Even in 1953, a Nash-Healey finished Le Mans with a very respectable 11th overall.
Nash-Healey Peculiarities
One of the first things I did after I finally nursed the Nash-Healey home was to pull the radiator and have it boiled out. I also flushed and reverse-flushed the block, bringing forth great gushers of brown liquid. After the water finally ran clear, I installed a new thermostat. All those simple steps were long overdue, and fortunately, they cured the overheating problem.
The front driver’s side dipped an inch or two lower than the passenger’s. Adjusting the Healey’s unorthodox front suspension made alignment and ride-height changes expensive.
As I began to work on it, the Nash-Healey struck me as having an unusual number of mechanical peculiarities, some odder than others. The first involved the front suspension, which, to my mind, borrowed a bit too much from the old Dubonnet system that General Motors used briefly in the 1930s.
Donald Healey’s version mounted two “boxes,” one on either end of a large, tubular front crossmember. The boxes contained coil springs plus double-acting lever shocks, and each suspended one front wheel from upper and lower trailing arms. The whole assemblage was heavy, complicated and expensive, but on the plus side, both front tires did stay upright in hard turns.
One of the first things my Nash-Healey needed when I got it was a front-end alignment and a raising of the trailing arms on the driver’s side. I left that chore to my favorite alignment shop here in Stockton, and how they pulled off the adjustments I have no idea. They did charge me $317, which was a lot of money for that sort of work at the time ($993 in today’s currency).
Mike’s eldest son, Robert, works on the ignition side of the Healey engine.
The second oddity involved the Nash engine and its restricted breathing. The Nash-Healey shared the Ambassador sedan’s inline-six, an overhead-valve engine of 252.6 cubic inches. On the good side, it had seven main bearings and full pressure lubrication. On the bad side, it used an intake manifold cast into the head. That meant that alternate manifolds were almost impossible to design and, so far as I know, no aftermarket manufacturer ever offered one for this engine. The only way to modify the intake “manifold” for smoother flow (it had nothing but 90-degree bends) was to grind away corners and casting flash.
Nor was there a conventional exhaust manifold. Instead, Nash capped the near end of the exhaust pipe and bolted it directly to the head, just below the two carburetors. This positioned the exhaust pipe perfectly to cause vapor lock. The pipe itself had holes on the engine-facing surface that matched ports in the head. This “manifold” arrangement bolted in place with three large U-clamps, ideally suited to rust and leak. The exhaust then ran forward, around the front of the engine, and finally back past the ignition side of the block.
This is a stock shot of a 1954 Nash-Healey engine, essentially the same as in Mike’s 1952. Hidden is the exhaust “manifold” just below the twin sidedraft carbs. You can see how the pipe comes around the front of the block, under the radiator tank, and heads rearward on the ignition side.
Nash’s plan was to save money in the manufacturing process, and it did do that. But all engine gases, both intake and exhaust, had to flow straight in and straight out of the head, again with nothing but 90-degree bends and fairly small passages. Breathing was so restricted that the engine was reluctant to rev above 4,000 RPM, although low-speed torque was good. The Healey/Ambassador Le Mans Dual Jetfire engine with twin carbs and an 8.0:1 compression ratio delivered 140 bhp and 230-lbs.ft. of torque at 2,000 RPM. This gave the Nash-Healey so-so acceleration and a top speed just over 100 MPH. I found ride quality to be smooth and comfortable, while handling was quite a bit better than other cars of that era.
A word about the Carter YH sidedraft carbs. These were fairly common at the time, having been used on six-cylinder Corvettes and turbocharged Corvairs. Actually, my problem driving home wasn’t so much with the carbs as with a semi-clogged fuel filter. Once I’d changed that, the car ran a lot better, but I did end up putting new kits in both carburetors.
Nash-Healey used the same Warner overdrive as a lot of other cars, and the problem with this particular unit was a bad solenoid. I bought a used solenoid out of a Chrysler transmission, and that got mine working fine.
Another peculiarity unique to the Nash-Healey was the overdrive kickdown switch. Instead of leaving it under the accelerator pedal as in most cars, Donald Healey decided to put the switch in the middle of the steering wheel, where the horn button would ordinarily be. What looked like the horn button had an “O” scribed on it, and to kick down out of overdrive, you simply tapped that button. To sound the horn, you used the horn ring.
The Nash-Healey’s turn signal lever stood on the instrument panel, to the left of the steering column. It was a short, lighted stalk that you toggled left or right to indicate a turn. You had to remember to cancel it manually – it wouldn’t return automatically.
Chrome Yellow
When I got the Nash-Healey, it was painted a schoolbus yellow, and the bodywork left a lot to be desired. That winter, I removed the grille and bumpers and stripped off the trim. I then drove the car over to Bob Smith’s house to be straightened and painted.
Bob worked in the meat department of our local grocery store, and we always talked about cars. He told me he could paint the Nash-Healey at his home. He had a paint booth in his garage, and in those days you could still shoot a car without a lot of legal restrictions.
Based on examples of Bob’s handiwork on other cars, there was no doubt that he could do a wonderful job. So I turned the Nash-Healey over to him, and he kept it for a year. I didn’t mind the length of stay because, for me, it meant free storage, and I had other cars at home that filled my own garages.
Bob initially suggested we paint the Nash-Healey white or ivory, those colors being the least revealing of ripply surfaces. I said, “How about metallic silver? Wouldn’t that do the same thing?” Bob agreed that silver would similarly mute any visual deviations, so silver it became.
Mike owned a lovely 1953 Studebaker Commander Starliner coupe at the same time as the Nash-Healey. He plans to talk about the Stude another time. This photo gives a sampling of the Healey’s red interior. It had originally been black.
The Nash-Healey had no top when I got it, although it did have side curtains. And the original bench seat had been replaced with buckets out of an early Mustang. The stock bench had a notch in the center to accommodate the shift lever in high gear, and I couldn’t find anything similar to replace it (later, several small Japanese pickups came out with notched bench seats). While Bob was prepping and painting the exterior, I took that time to re-dye the interior from black to red, including the door and kick panels, and I replaced the original carpet with a red one. I thought the whole car came out looking quite spoofy.
Several trim pieces were missing when I got the car. First were the Pinin Farina (two words back then) badges ahead of the doors. I found a nice set on a Fiat in a local wrecking yard.
More difficult to replace were the thin, horizontal trim strips along the rocker panels, beneath the doors. I finally bought a set from our local Volkswagen dealer – identical strips used on VW 411s of that vintage. They fit perfectly.
Mike’s youngest son, John (“Jay”), takes the Nash-Healey out for a spin. Mike sold the car in 1983, and he never took many pictures.
I owned the Nash-Healey from August 1979 until February 1983, when I sold it to a friend, George, in the foothills east of Stockton for $10,000 ($30,000 in 2010 dollars). My total investment at the time was $5,694.03 (around $17,000 today). George kept the car for a couple of decades, and I told him if he ever wanted to resell it to give me first rights of refusal. Unfortunately, someone else came along in 2005, made George an offer he couldn’t refuse, and I have no idea where the car ended up.
Michael Lamm grew up in South Texas. He has always loved cars and, after graduating from Columbia University in New York in 1959, took a job as editor of Foreign Car Guide, a magazine about VWs. In the mid 1960s, Mike became managing editor of Motor Trend and, in 1970, he co-founded Special-Interest Autos magazine in partnership with Hemmings Motor News. In 1978, Mike began to publish his own line of automotive books. For more information, go to www.LammMorada.com.