The Wisconsin Project: 1949 Nash Ambassador Super Four-Door Sedan

29.9.13

1949 Nash Ambassador Super Four-Door Sedan

1949 Nash Ambassador Super Four-Door Sedan with 1800s Stone Shed,
Polifka Corners, Whitelaw, Wisconsin, July 2013
© J. Shimon & J. Lindeman

Nash Motors Company of Kenosha, Wisconsin, was so dedicated to the idea of aerodynamics that it charged $9 extra for the George Petty-designed flying lady hood ornament on its 1949 Ambassador sedan. The plush, post-war "Airflyte" Ambassador featured technological innovations such a single welded "unibody" (frame and body are one), enclosed front wheels, (hydramatic) automatic transmission, and reclining seats that formed a twin bed. Known as the "make-out" auto of choice by the teens of the 1950s, the Ambassador had a streamlined tear-drop shaped back, cockpit-like instrument panel with uniscope instrument grouping, and a spaceous trunk. Referred to as "Miss Upside-Down Bathtub of 1949" by Tom McCahill in Mechanix Illustrated, it sold for about $2,200 and was alternately called the "Kenosha Cadillac" or "Kenosha Duesenberg." Just a little over a half-century later, the former Nash Motors factory on 110 acres near Lake Michigan was considered a blight. After morphing into Nash-Kelvinator then American Motors (AMC) then Chyrsler, the plant closed in 2010 and demolition began in December 2012. Surviving Ambassadors remain as a monument to the idealism of an American ingenuity that believed in the possibility of a faster and sleeker vessel to transport the human body through space and time. We purchased a 1949 Ambassador from a guy named Kurt in Idaho Falls, Idaho in November of 2012 for about the original selling price including shipping. The last time he started the car before sending it on its way to our farm in Wisconsin, Kurt said "she purred like a kitten." And she did. On Thursday, September 26, 2013 John Shimon, accompanied by artist Matt Chung, drove the auto through the Wisconsin countryside passing corn fields, verdant forests, and an aqua Lake Michigan to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. On the trip, it got 25-30 miles per gallon due to its economical 6-cylinder engine, overdrive transmission, and aerodynamic body design. As part of our WE GO FROM WHERE WE KNOW exhibition at the JMKAC, it will be filled with over 1,000 cast concrete corn cobs memorializing a childhood memory of a Nash repurposed as a corn crib while contemplating the contemporary role of corn as food and fuel in the US. Matt Chung made this video documenting the journey:

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THE WISCONSIN PROJECT

Our research-driven Wisconsin Project contemplates the rooted-ness and state-of-mind resulting from inhabiting a single place, our native Wisconsin, for a long time. Through critiquing postcard views both made and found, we learn a great deal about past and present Wisconsin. We began making postcard views of the places immediately around our studio and on our drives around Wisconsin in about 2008. We use the vintage postcard film format and print the cards in palladium and cyanotype. By communicating details of a specific place, seeming to register only marginally on the national radar, the project seeks to bring audiences into a Wisconsin mental space. Some in the art world would argue that the Midwest, particularly Wisconsin, makes for banal “fly over” subject matter. Our project challenges that by finding meaning in the ordinary and inviting audiences to examine, dialog, and reflect on the particular emotional quality of the idiosyncrasies of place and the perceptions of those both inside and outside of it. Sometimes distant memories are involved and a longing for a time now gone. Wisconsin’s glacier inflected landscape and proximity to the Great Lakes creates an exotic arena for living that informs our project. The life cycle plays out and rural and urban ruins serve as monuments to existences as people, places, and ideas surface then vanish. Ultimately, we aim to grapple with complex perceptions of Wisconsin ranging from nostalgic, romantic, and idealized--as depicted on myriad real photo postcard and standard tourist postcards--to mysterious, dark, and Gothic as conveyed in works of art and literature such as Michael Lesy's "Wisconsin Death Trip" book and Werner Herzog's "Stroszek" film. The project culminated in a residency with workshops and community collaborations and the installation "We Go From Where We Know" at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center 10.13.2013-3.7.2014 and later the Harvestore Bandshell for Fermentation Fest in 10.2014. The blog continues the exploration of postcards.