Nash was the greatest of all amortizers, so the exceptions to the rule stand out.
Hudson had two unique inventions, the failsafe brake system in 1936 and the stepdown body in 1948. Nobody ever copied the failsafe brakes, which were the BEST SAFETY FEATURE before seatbelts. AMC continued installing the simple failsafe system on its Nash-based Hudsons from ’55 to ’57, but never transferred the parts to the nearly identical Nash and never continued it with the Rambler.
The stepdown went the opposite way. EVERYBODY copied the stepdown pattern because it made cars LONG AND LOW. Nobody wants safety, everybody wants LONG AND LOW.
With one exception.
Again AMC, which owned the patents and skills and tooling first, didn’t adopt stepdown for many years. They even used their NON-stepdown floor as a selling point in ’60.
In this sales trainer they compared the Corvair’s recessed front floor, “hard to get into”, with the Rambler’s non-recessed floor, “easy to get into”. The pictures in the film are unclear, so I found some clearer examples.
1960 Corvair recessed floor, clearly visible in an ad for an accessory console. The ad also shows that GM copied VW’s stupid foot-level “heat” vents along with the rest of VW’s air-cooled stupidity. Fortunately the customers recognized that GM was copying the wrong source. Falcon won the battle by copying Rambler, and Rambler continued gaining despite the competition.
1960 American straight across floor, in an auto auction ad.
Polistra's Mill 