1937 Nash Lafayette 400 Business Coupe🇺🇸

$0.00

Nearly identical to the full size Nashes, the Lafayette 400 had a shorter hood and front fenders, horizontal grille bars, a unique hood ornament and chevrons decorating the fenders. While all of Nash’s products were base priced under $1,000, the Lafayette 400 was a low priced car. The lowest priced offering was the business coupe at $595, while the highest was the cabriolet at $740.
Company
Nash-Kelvinator Corporation

Make
Nash

Model
Lafayette 400, 3712

Body Style
Business coupe, 2-dr, 3-pass.

Body Manufacture
NA

Model year
1937

Wheelbase
117 inches

Length
194.5 inches

Engine
inline-6, L-head, 234.8 cid

Horsepower
90 hp @ 3400 rpm

Transmission
3-speed manual

Original Base Price
$595

Brand Production
85,949

This Car Production
NA
The Lafayette nameplate has an eye-brow raising history. The Lafayette Motors Company was founded quietly in Indianapolis, IN in 1919 by none other than Charlie Nash. Nash purloined a number of key Cadillac people and founded LaFayette as a luxury brand separate from his own Nash Motors Company. But, the timing couldn’t have been any worse. Introducing a luxury car just as a major recession was hitting proved a disaster. In August of 1923, a letter circulated to the shareholders recommended the sale of the company for $225,000 to the Ajax Motors Company. What the letter did not say was that Ajax was a new concern owned entirely by Nash Motors.

When the last Lafayette cars were completed in early 1924, the factory was packed up and shipped to the Ajax factory in Racine, WI. The Ajax was a low priced car, sub-$1,000, which came out in 1925. One year later, Nash concluded the car would sell better with the Nash name plate attached and it became the Nash Light Six. Ajax disappeared.

Fast forward to 1933 and Nash was again facing a major economic hurdle, this time the Great Depression. Nash had been doing well in the mid-priced market and was trying to go more upmarket when the depression took hold. They needed to go down market quickly and bring out a lower priced product. The new car introduced in 1934, would again be called Lafayette and marketed as a separate mark sold by Nash dealers.

Lafayette as a separate mark lasted through 1936. In 1937, with the closing of the deal for Kelvinator to acquire Nash and George Mason to step in as President, Lafayette was combined with the low priced Nash 400 to create the one-year-only Nash Lafayette 400. In 1938 the car would become the Nash Lafayette and by the end of 1940 the Lafayette name would disappear, apparently this time, forever.