For Nash, the proud car maker founded by industry pioneer Charlie Nash, the end came quietly in the summer of 1957. Here’s one last look back.

Car enthusiasts of today tend to associate Nash, founded in 1916 by ex-General Motors president Charles W. Nash, with compacts and economy cars like the Rambler and Metropolitan. But actually, the company originally made its name with larger, mid-priced cars known for their comfort and quality.  By the early ’50s Nash had settled into a corner of the Buick/Olds segment of the market, offering conservative but well-appointed cars in the $3,000 range. This was a competitive and increasingly tough neighborhood for a producer of Nash’s small volume, and by the summer of 1957 the brand was essentially shoved out of the market.

Of course, it’s no coincidence that the finale for both the Nash and Hudson brands  came on exactly the same day: June 25, 1957. Both car makers were operated by American Motors, which had been created by a merger of the two companies in the spring of 1954, and the final production runs for both makes took place at the ex-Nash AMC plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (At Mac’s Motor City Garage several months ago, we featured the end of the grand old Hudson Motor Car Company—read the story here).

In the photo above, a Nash Ambassador rolls off the Kenosha assembly line, followed closely by a Hudson Hornet—both cars shared the same Nash unitized platform, but with different exterior sheet metal. For 1957, there was but one Nash model, the top-of-the-line Ambassador, as the shorter-wheelbase Statesman was discontinued. Two trim levels were offered, Super and Custom, and there were just two body styles, a four-door sedan and a two-door pillarless hardtop called the Country Club. A 327 CID version of the American Motors V8 with 255 horsepower was the only engine available, coupled to a choice of synchromesh, overdrive, or General Motors Hydra-Matic transmissions.

In the Nash tradition, a full catalog of standard and optional equipment was offered, including power steering, brakes, and windows, along with Nash’s advanced All-Season air conditioning, one of the first dash-integrated A/C systems. Buyers could choose among 32 paint schemes in single-tone, two-tone, and three-tone combinations, separated by flamboyant zig-zag chome trim the mad men named “Lightning Streak Styling.”

While the 1957 model year was planned from the start as a winding-down operation for Nash, the brand did manage to pull off one significant innovation—as an early adopter of the quad-lamp headlamp system, which used four 5.75-inch sealed beams in place of the traditional pair of 7-in. lamps. (Nash 1956 and 1957 models are shown in the photo above for comparison.) While Nash is often credited with the calendar first, it’s fair to note that Chrysler Corporation, Cadillac, and Mercury also introduced quad lamps for 1957. In an extra twist, the Nash lamps were stacked vertically, a look also adopted by Lincoln that year, though not with a true quad-lamp system. (If you look closely, the ’57 Lincoln vertical setup uses a pair of 7-in. lamps bracketed with driving lamps.)

American Motors produced only 10,330 cars wearing the Nash emblem in the final model year before the assembly lines stopped in June, and the end came with little fanfare. President George Romney had crafted other plans for the company, discarding the Nash and Hudson names and embracing a new brand, Rambler, which the automaker would carry for the next decade.