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28/04/2008 1:33 am
An early Nash (revisited) & correcting an error
Last evening I posted a picture of a bright yellow kit car by Revell, quoting the information on the bottom of the car, which identified it as a Nash Rambler 1904.photo no longer available
Then I started thinking, and this morning did a little checking. The Nash Corporation was not in existence in 1904.
Thomas B. Jeffery sold his bicycle company, producer of the Rambler bicycle, about 1897 and started production of the Rambler automobile about 1902 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Jeffery produced both Ramblers and Jefferys. The Revell model was simply a Rambler, as the Jeffery name was not used until after 1904 as a model name.
Charles Nash, former president of General Motors, purchased the Jeffery Company in 1916, starting his own automobile company, Nash Motors.
In 1950 Nash Motors introduced a new, much smaller Nash model, and named it the Nash Rambler.
In 1953, when Gowland & Gowland produced the plastic model for Revell, someone linked the Jeffery-built Rambler to the Nash Rambler in a logical but incorrect manner, and the wrong name was put on the plastic model. The front of the box correctly identifies the model as the 1904 Rambler.
Please forgive me for perpetuating the error. David Holcombe