The new low-price model had more fine-car features than the competition
The Nash Motor Company earned a reputation in the 1930s for building premium-quality automobiles. Top-of-the-line Nashes were a hard sell in that Depression-marked decade so, like its competitors in Detroit, the Wisconsin-based automaker focused on more affordable offerings. For 1937, Nash boosted its bottom line by marketing the new LaFayette “400” under its own nameplate.
There was greatness in that historic French name. Buyers of the day may have remembered the LaFayette Motors Company of Indianapolis, a firm that built V-8-powered luxury cars in small numbers in the early 1920s. It was financed by Charles W. Nash, who’d left the presidency of General Motors in 1916 to make his eponymous car brand out of what had been the Thomas B. Jeffrey Company and considered LaFayette a halo marque. Early Nash Motor Company products were similarly expensive, so it debuted the 1925-’26 Ajax as a lower-priced companion car to boost sales; that short-lived experiment failed, leading to Nash marketing cheaper cars under its own badge. For 1934, the company reintroduced the LaFayette nameplate as an entry-level car: the “LaFayette Built By Nash” included some high-end Nash features in a smaller package, at popular prices
For 1937, the automaker brought its LaFayette fully into the fold, badging this model the Nash LaFayette “400” and pricing it below the Ambassador Six and flagship Ambassador Eight. The new car was a fine deal, with period ads boasting “$595 and up,” equivalent to around $12,630 in today’s currency. It rode on a wheelbase fully five inches longer than that of a competing Ford or Plymouth and offered features like a “seamless one-piece all-steel body”—a step towards the 1941 600’s unitized construction—and seven-main-bearing inline-six. The 400 was available a four-door sedan, two-door Victoria sedan, three- or (with rumble seat) five-passenger coupe, and a three-passenger Cabriolet.
The mechanical sophistication that Nashes were noted for was intact in the 400. This model used a 234-cu.in. L-head engine with a 3 3/8 x 4 3/8-inch bore and stroke that had an unusual design, dubbed “Monitor-Sealed.” The downdraft carburetor attached to the head, with the intake manifold integrated inside the iron block and the exhaust pipe bolting directly to it; the brochure noted “more than 500 parts have been eliminated!” Nash engineers specified rifle-bored connecting rods that channeled lubricating oil to the piston pins, plus hollow crank pins to lighten the rotating mass, resulting in 90 hp and an unspecified amount of torque transmitted through a three-speed manual transmission with optional Automatic Cruising Gear overdrive. The car’s finned drum brakes had 176 square inches of braking surface, more than even the Packard 6 offered, and its lubricated, sealed leaf springs were damped by Gabriel lever-arm shock absorbers. Of course, LaFayette buyers could opt for Nash staples like a hot-water heater/defroster and a fold-down rear seat/full-size mattress sleeper arrangement in sedans
The Nash LaFayette “400,” sold through 1940, didn’t survive in large numbers. According to classic.com, just two have sold at auction in the past four years and both were street rods: one brought $23,888 and the other, $49,500. Book values for unmodified original and restored examples are more approachable than those of their Big Three competitors, though, confirming this model as a great value.