22 (46) AUTOMOTIVE NEWS, JANUARY 13, 1941 Spring, some of the financial difficulties familiar to countless far-sighted and ambitious enterprises , kingpin Summer Sales 'WmyAITTO-bwgraphy of the group, was having growing pains. Production costs were way out of line, and on top of that the com. Campaigns Open Ti enough to keep 'flMtfl'./vV) THE SAGA. OFTOE FIRST pany couldn’t build up with the PONTIAC. Pontiac executives, 100 YEARS ON RUBBER growing demand. headed by D. U. Bathrlck, general purse-strings sales manager, will discuss the The men who held the of the group spring and early summer sales and • By Chris Sinsabaueh asked Durant, “What about this man Nash?” and a few merchandising plans with mem- days later in , Durant was saying, “Charley, you’re bers of the company’s field or- £ Cafete date r to be held in important cities So at 46, Charley Nash was starting out all over throughout the country beginning again. He was starting all over again, but he started this week. like a sprinter. The company made SBOO,OOO his first In attendance will be regional, year; he pushed this up to $12,000,000 by 1914, when zone and assistant zone, district to and zone service managers and he had already been pulled over run the whole Gen- service representatives. Bathrick eral Motors set-up. will be assisted at Atlantic and On July 13, 1916, with the financial backing of Lee, central region meetings by V. L. Higginson & Co., Nash acquired the Thomas B. Murray, assistant general sales Kenosha, manager in charge of the east, and Co. of Wis. The product of this company, at midwest and Pacific region known as the Jeffery (formerly the ), was very meetings by V. A. Davison, as- favorably known in those days, but the company was sistant general sales manager in on the decline. charge of the west. Two meetings will be held in • the central region. The Cincinnati First Nash in 1917 meeting Jan. 13 will be attended The first Nash produced made its appearance in 1917. by field staff members from the Called the “680,” it had a 25.3 horsepower, six-cylinder Cincinnati, Atlanta and Cleveland The zones. The Pontiac meeting Jan. motor of valve-in-head design. touring model sold 14 will be attended by the staffs for about $1,300, while the sedan was listed at $1,985. of the Pontiac, Pittsburgh and Nash’s name on the hood had a real meaning to auto- Buffalo zones. Manager of the mobile buyers, and 10,000 cars were sold during the first Central region is J. A. Grier. was The midwest region will be year that the new company in operation. served by two meetings. The Chi- The new organization was hardly rolling when it re- cago meeting, Jan. 16, will bring ceived a test that might have collapsed a business less together members of the Chicago, sturdily founded. The World War was approaching its Minneapolis, Omaha and St. Louis climax, country zones, while the Kansas City and every resource of the was being meeting Jan. 17 will include the thrown into the struggle. The Army was in desperate San Antonio, Dallas, Kansas City, need of an immediate solution to its great trucking Oklahoma City and Memphis zone problem. Nash’s response was high-gear production of personnel. Allen Wright is man- ager of this region. one of the sturdiest trucks in early automobile history A two-day meeting Jan. 20-21 FOUNDER Charles W. Nash, left, and President Oeorge W. the famed four-wheel drive Quad and rapidly will be held at New York City to Mason, right. turned out more than 10,000 of these units expressly for cover the entire Atlantic region. the war department. In addition to this then startling M. C. Thompson is manager of the Chapter CV—Nash and Mason Atlantic region. output the greatest truck production in the industry Los Angeles, San Francisco, By 1916 the automobile was moving rapidly out of Nash built over 11,000 automobiles. Portland and Denver zones of the the luxury class and beginning to represent the most From then on, growth and success of the company Pacific region will meet Feb. 3 in single financial responsibility undertaken by San Francisco for the Pacific re- important was steady. Production by 1928 had reached 138,000 gional conference. Tom M. Ray is the average citizen during his lifetime. A big part in units a year. Then came the depression, and with it one manager of the region. this soaring importance of the automobile in the Ameri- of the most brilliant chapters in Nash history. Here’s can scene was the astounding rise of how one of the leading business magazines relates that New Gains Seen under the stewardship of husky Charles W. Nash, erst- story: In Transportation while penniless farmhand of Genesee County, Michigan. “Back in 1928, when the majority of motor men were After taking over the leadership of General Motors so enraptured by New Era prophecies that they were DETROIT.—“A demand for trans- in 1913, when GM’s profits totaled $7,460,000, and build- portation never before approached confusing the future of automobile sales with a Holy in our land will accompany the ing this figure up in three years to $29,150,000, Charles Roller’s vision of the pearly gates, Mr. Nash took note industrial expansion due to the gi- W. Nash, the newspaper headlines said, was resigning of a few business factors that had been neglected by the gantic preparedness program dur- to build “an automobile of his own.” other ing the coming two years,” states seers and decided to pull in his horns. While I had rather expected Nash’s resignation sooner or motor men scrambled frantically for a disappearing Harvey C. Fruehauf, president of however, Fruehauf Trailer Co. “In many later, because I felt he was kind of restless market in the early 30’s and went deeper and deeper parts of our country highway way up there on top of the automobile world. He al- into the red, Mr. Nash’s Nash Motors Co. cut its dealer facilities will be entirely inade- ways was itching to do things with those big hands of service practically in half, refused to make a single quate and a vigorous road building his, program will have to be inaugu- and it was inevitable he would move himself back unless it had an order for it, and salted away its very rated to eliminate congestion and into a spot where the smell of hot steel and the whine sizable surplus by investing it in government bonds. bottlenecks,” predicted Fruehauf. of big machines could flood the atmosphere around his “In 1928,” the magazine continues, “the company’s “Even the expenditure of only desk. an extra few million dollars above factories at Kenosha, and Racine, turned out normal would suffice to affect Horatio Alger Hero 137,000 cars and sold them at glittering New Era prices; tremendously the demand for all in 1933 they produced only 11,000, and the company fell forms of transportation. But when Nevertheless, there was something surprising about into the red and stayed there three years running. But this expenditure reaches several everything Nash did. Here was a man starting out all 1934, billions of dollars, as it will during the deficits 51,200,000 in 1933, $1,600,000 in and over again at past the half-century mark to create an $610,000 in the coming months, we can expect usual, in 1935 made comparatively little dent to find all of our facilities taxed independent automobile empire of his own. As he the company’s moneybags. to their utmost, and this goes for was going Horatio Alger one better. And if young men “Nash’s total assets railways at the end of 1936 were $38,000, airways, waterways and can be inspired by the story of what other men have 000, its current ratio of liabilities eight to one. as well as highways. them, recommend a quick peek at the assets to transportation done before I’ll As a feat in conserving capital through the worst depres- “The increase in Nash will not only be directly due to Charley saga. sion in U. S. industrial history, Nash’s performance the necessary movement of heavy Born in January, 1864, near Chicago in a town whose through the early thirties was something wonderful to goods in connection with the name he never knew, Nash was bound out to a farmer behold.” armament industries, but will also when he was 12 to be- multiply as a result of the by- when he was 10, and ran away In the 25 years of its existence, Nash has built more products of activity in all commer- gin 15 years of hard work as a farm laborer. Until he than 1,300,000 automobiles in its three plants. cial was 27, the most money he ever made in one year was Nearly all of these cars have borne the Nash name, the Winter Car Use Analyzed S3OO. But still he was “putting away some money for only exceptions being the and the LaFayette. In Roads Bureau a rainy day” the cornerstone of the philosophy that 1924 Nash purchased the Mitchell Motor Co. at Racine, By Federal most management wizards WASHINGTON.—An answer to made him one of the astute formed the Ajax Motors Co. as a separate organization. the question of how much winter the motor industry will ever know. The Ajax lasted until 1926 when the two companies weather reduces motor vehicle use He gave up the farm when he was 27 because of his were combined. Nash also had bought the LaFayette in given parts of the United States Flint, Mich., in analysis young wife’s ill health, took a job in a (Continued on Next Page) was found last week to of the latest compilation of gaso- grocery store at $1 a day. His itch work with his line consumption statistics by the hands soon led him over to the employment office of Federal Public Roads Administra- the Flint Road Cart Co. This company employed a tion. so and turned out 10,000 two-wheel hundred or men '' The figures show that in Mon- f 1 tana and North Dakota, motorists carts a year. The owners: J. D. Dort and W. C. Durant. J \ i use only 33 percent as much gas Nash was given a job as a trimmer, but before the in February as in August. In year was out, Dort had called Charley into his office Idaho, Maine and Wyoming about of the plant. I think this 45 percent as much is used. In far and made him superintendent southern states about 45 percent as sets some sort of a record for fast promotions. February as in 1910, moving up to much is used in He remained with the firm until rm ¦ v August. Florida is the one ex- the position of vice-president and general manager of ception where gas consumption is which, by that time, was the largest or- greater in winter, February use the company, being about 30 percent higher than ganization of its kind in the country. August. Total annual highway con- As we have related, this was just about the time the 'S, 'j' m \ - sumption of gasoline ranged from new General Motors group, organized by Nash’s former 36,000,000 gallons in Nevada to 1.8 C. Durant, was beginning to experience billion in New York. co-employer, W. THE FIRST NASH