1950 Nash Ambassador

What’s not to love about a big-bodied beauty of this era..

From its bold bodylines and gleaming chrome trim to the quirky interior touches and those charming front spats—we couldn’t get enough of this Nash. Rob, the owner, is a returning customer and came to us with some awesome ideas for the interior. We were over the moon to bring it all together and finish it off for him.

Refined and well executed blast from the past

This was our goal. Rob was quite a purist more than he was a retromod guy and knowing that we set about to designing an interior that would tick all the boxes for him and still add some flair that we associate with the golden era of the 50’s.

While simple in its design, the real trick was the colours for this one. Rob had already in his possession a gorgeous rich terracotta leather which we knew had to be in there. It paired so well with the external colour that we set about finding some complementary colours to bridge the gap. What we landed on was a soft sand pebble grain vinyl and a light caramel for some piping accents and inserts and finally a brown carpet. The result, a beautiful gradient of warm tones that oozed the class and grandeur of this big beauty but still had that fun and flair of the 50’s

Simple yet effective

With that mindset, we let the colours and tones of this interior do most of the talking. Subtle accents scattered throughout, paired with the clean styling and classic patterns from that era, really brought the space to life quickly.
Check out some “in the build” shots below to see just how much room this old girl’s got—it’s damn near a small apartment in there!

Notable Touches

I’d like to dedicate a little space for some of the cooler additions we felt needed their own spotlight! Rob was brilliant with this part as he really knew how to maintain the “gold’ of the era. Opting for the painstaking route of keeping the whole car 6V and then even finding some classic accessories to add in! For example, the inclusion of the little fan in the back seat there infront of the parcel shelf. Where will you ever see another?! Same too the brake light in the top corner of the windscreen there. Cool additions that didn’t remotely come close to ruining the aesthetic as most of these “bolt-on” accessories do.

Playing with those ideas, we included a touch of flair to that massive parcel shelf with the inclusion of some pleats that were throughout the whole interior. We even gave the sunvisors the same treatment! Every little bit of character helps, you jsut have to be selective about how much and where.

Even some smaller, seemingly unimportant parts got some lovin- Check this lower panel below the seats

I could go on forever listing these little touches—it’s honestly one of my favourite parts of the job. Tailoring the details to suit each specific car or build is something I really take pride in!

The dual living sofa suites

While these look like a simple job, they’re far from it. These were original frames with sprung bottoms which meant a tonne of fun shaping and tailoring my foam ontop to be square and visually spot on, then even following that, getting my patterns right!

Glad to say we got there in the end and what a result! Rob wanted a little bolstering to secure him in the seat without it looking like a modern vehicle too heavily. I think we nailed the brief, using loads of flat panels and stretching that marine vinyl taut all over to mimic an early and simpler seat you’d expect to see from this era of vehicle.

With that one knocked out, we set out on the rears to match. Though, the rears being a true 1 piece seat cushion and squab (not split like the front bench) we opted for another chance to switch up the design a little. More charm, little quirky but we think it works well!

Wrapping up

With most of the custom and one-off pieces wrapped up, there wasn’t much left to do. Builds like this soak up a tonne of hours, and with something this big, we almost always end up going over budget—so a big thanks to Rob for bearing with us! We’re really happy with the finish of it.. Feels like a perfect time capsule of an interior that replicates the car so well!
Even writing this up, I’ve loved reliving all the intricate and cool touches that went into the build so thanks again Rob for trusting us with it!

I’ll finish this blog with a heap of photos for your viewing pleasure! Thanks for reading