Collect information on Airflytes still in existance, everything from condition "ones" to "sixes," compare this information to original production figures and sharing this knowledge with Registry Members.
Share information on parts, interchanges, vendor sources, etc. to help get Airflytes on the road and out to the car shows.
Promote the Airflytes for what they truly were in 1949: "The world's most modern cars." A car often caricatured, the Airfyltes were revolutionary in their wind tunnel influenced design, their unibody construction, interior design and features, and (often forgotten or ignored) they propelled Nash Motors to their highest ever production figures.
Even within the Nash Car Club the Airflytes have their fans and their detractors. All three "fifty year anniversaries" came and went without the car ever being a "Featured Car" at the GrandNashionals. However, at most GrandNashionals they are either the most or second most numerous models of Nashes present. The Airflyte styling influenced Nash and Rambler models for years, from the enclosed wheels, the oval grilles, the twin bed seats, unibody constructions, and many other features.
While it is not possible to clearly state who was responsible for individual parts of the Airflyte design, the man most responsible was Nash's Vice-President of Engineering, Nils Wahlberg. Joining Nash at the very begining in 1916, he worked his way up to the engineering vice-presidency by 1931.
As industry advances in automotive design, tooling, and engineering progressed in the 1930's the Swiss educated and trained Wahlberg became a firm believer in studying the effects of aerodynamics, streamling, and wind resistenance on the design and operation of automobiles.
During World War II under Department of War contracts, Nash produced many items such as propellers, airplane engines and even some helicopters. As a result of this War Department work, Wahlberg was able to obtain access to a wind tunnel in Milwaukee which helped him in his early thinking about an all new post-war automobile. Early in 1943 Wahlberg and a Nash body designer, Don Mortrude, built a full size model of an areodynamic car and tested it in the wind tunnel and modified it as they studied the test results.
In August of 1943, Bob Koto and Ted Pietsch, two independent car designers, approached Nash with a model and drawings of a large aerodynamically clean car dessign. Although neither the model nor the drawings were kept by Wahlberg, who years later would not recall the model nor Koto, one cannot but help look at the picture of the model and not realize that it obviously affected Wahlberg's thinking considerably.
Once the general shape and direction of the Airflyte program firmed up, the actual work on the production models was done by Meade Moore, Nash's Chief Engineer, and by Ted Ulrich, who was so important in the pioneering achievements of the pre-war Nash "600" unit body work. The final results of all these efforts was a car design so clean and slippery that a series of wind tunnel tests at the University of Witchita showed that the Nash Airflytes moved thru the air with 20.7% less air drag than the average of all other leading makes of cars.
(www.Torq-O.com)
