While they are seldom seen today in the collector-car world, the Nash Airflytes of 1949 through 1951 are truly distinctive cars.

While the Motor CIty’s bathtub styling trend of the late ’40s was a brief one, it produced some memorable cars. Hudson and Packard, to name two, were leading proponents of the upside-down bathtub look, while Mercury and Lincoln, among others, also adopted some of its elements. But the queen of the bathtubs was the 1949-51 Nash Airflyte. As the often bombastic Tom McCahill of Mechanix Illustrated wrote at the time,  “Nash, one of the oldest automakers in America, has gone overboard for the newest fad in automotive designs and come up with two hot candidates for Miss Upside-Down Bathtub of 1949.” The new Nash 600 and Ambassador, he blasted,  “jumped into the latest fashion with both faucets wide open.”

While Nash’s bathtub styling theme was trendy, there was some science behind it. Engineering VP Nils Wahlberg had a keen interest in aerodynamics, and during the war years he and his designers performed wind tunnel studies with a full-sized plaster model. They later determined that their eventual design required significantly less road horsepower to maintain 60 mph than a comparable Buick or Chrysler, hence the name Airflyte,

The Airflytes were advanced in other ways, too. Both models, the junior 600 and the deluxe Ambassador, employed an early form of unitzed construction, with the frame and body shell welded together into a single unit (above).  Independent front suspension, torque-tube drive, and coil springs at all four corners provided a plush ride, but there was one significant compromise in the chassis design: To provide steering clearance inside the enclosed front fenders, the front track width was five inches narrower than the rear.

Another signature Airflyte feature was the Uniscope instrument pod, above, which enclosed all the gauge dials in a single housing on the steering column directly in front of the driver. The Uniscope lent a clean and uncluttered look to the dash, though Nash dealership mechanics didn’t care much for it, reportedly—the wiring harness inside the housing was a tangle and access to the speedometer cable was poor. You can’t please everyone. Nash’s famed reclining seat setup, which folded into a twin bed for campers and sportsmen, was a $39 extra, while the GM Hydra-Matic transmission was another avialable option beginning in 1950.

When production began in October of 1948, the Airflyte was offered in two model lines. The junior 600 (renamed the Statesman in 1950) rolled on a 112-inch wheelbase, powered by a 172.6 CID flathead six, while the imposing Amabassador (121-in wb) boasted a 234 CID overhead-valve six. There were but two body styles, a two-door coupe and a four-door sedan—no station wagon, convertible, or hardtops. When the compact Nash Rambler joined the lineup in April of 1950 (read about it here) it was given the Airflyte designation, but it was in fact a different platform.

While they don’t get much love today in the collector car world, the inverted-bathtub Airflyte models of 1949-51 actually gave Nash some of its best years. In 1950, Nash produced nearly 192,000 cars—its best year in history.