Route 66 Rambler Report

By Route66Rambler  on Tue 28 of Apr, 2009 23:21 MST

This is perhaps the most brutal and horrific road race ever run, and for the few years that it lasted, it was the ultimate proving ground for both driver and race car.

Found a couple of pictures of Bill France's Nash Ambassador that was run in the 1950 Mexican Road Race. The official title of the race was the Carrera Panamericana.

http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/Carrera_Panamericana-1950-05-10.html

Bill France and Curtis Turner were entered in the race at No. 37, but crashed out and didn't finish.

Later on, in September of that same year, the car is seen here in a race at North Wilkesboro Speedway in a full drift at speed:

Ebenezer "Slick" Smith drove this Nash Ambassador in the Sept. 24 NASCAR race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Smith crashed midway through the race and wound up 20th in the field of 26. Bill France and Curtis Turner had driven the Nash in the Carrera Panamericana during the summer. The Nash Motor Co. was the first manufacturer to actively support NASCAR racing.- HowStuffWorks.com

The link at the top of this post has a page with photos of other AMC Heritage cars in the race, also, including a couple of Hudsons:

1950 Hudson entered No. 1 by Luis and Tomas Iglesias-Davalos. Did not finish, timed out.

1950 Hudson entered No. 14 by Dempsey Wilson and Lou Figaro. Did not finish, crashed out. Seen here, in the middle.

The car to the left is the No. 98 car, a 1946 Hudson Commodore. Entered by Chuck Meekins and Joe Pisano. Did Not Finish, over time.

From the WikiPedia:

Endurance

Eight Nash Ambassadors were entered in the 1950 Carrera Panamericana, a 2,172-mile (3,495 km) endurance race run over five days across Mexico. Three finished but the highest-placed was disqualified.

The 1950 model driven by Roy Pat Conner was in sixth place on the ninth and final stage, 33 minutes behind the leader, when Connor became too ill to continue. Curtis Turner, who shared another '50 Ambassador with Bill France, purchased Conner's car for its superior race position, replaced Conner at the wheel and left France to continue without him.

Punctures had delayed many participants, among them a race favorite, Grand Prix driver Piero Taruffi, whose Alfa Romeo 6C 2500's tire problems had held him to 28th place on the third stage. By the eighth stage he was up to ninth place. On the final stage Taruffi had improved to fourth when Turner passed him in the mountains by bumping the Italian until he yielded the place. Taruffi took it back when the Nash, in turn, was temporarily halted by a flat tire.

But at the finish, with Taruffi in Turner's sights, the elapsed time of the ill-handling, underpowered Nash beat the Alfa by 11½ minutes to put Turner in fourth place behind a Cadillac 62.

However, regulations prohibited changing a car's crew and he was disqualified, which handed fourth, with a time 27 minutes behind the winning Oldsmobile 88, to Taruffi, who would win a year later.

Bill France eventually crashed out of the race but the damage did not prevent the Nash being driven back to the U.S.A., where France and Turner used it for a full season's dirt track racing in the Southern states.

The France/Turner entry was one of four Nashes that crashed out. A fifth retired with engine trouble. Santoyo's 1949 Ambassador was classified 36th out of the 47 finishers and another '49 model came 39th.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Ambassador (external link)