NASH LOVE AFFAIR LED HIM TO LENO
Alberta native Leeson bonded with former talk-show star over Airflyte’s restoration
One evening, Gord Leeson was watching an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage. Leno, the comedian famous for his love of old vehicles, was talking about his 1950 Nash Airflyte.
“I’m missing a horn ring; I have to get this,” Leno says in the video and adds, “If anybody has one, let me know, I’ll give you a call.”
Since Leeson had recently finished customizing his own 1950 Nash Airflyte, he had the parts Leno was after.
“I got in touch with his agent,” says Leeson. “And Leno called me up while I was out in my shop. He talked to me for about 20 minutes and he wanted to know all about my Nash and what I’d done to it.”
There’s a story about Leeson’s Nash, but first a little bit more about the man and his cars. Born and raised in Didsbury, a town about 100 kilometres north of Calgary, Leeson is something of a renaissance man of the West. He’s not only a hot-rod builder, but also a past champion on the cutting horse circuit, a rancher and a realtor. When he was a teenager in Grade 11, Leeson built his first hot rod, a 1932 Ford pickup.
“I had good marks in Grade 10 and then I spent Grade 11 building the car. My grades weren’t the best that year,” he says with a chuckle.
Regardless of what he’s been doing in life, Leeson has enjoyed tinkering with and building cars. When he was 26, Leeson had the opportunity to buy some land and to fund that purchase he had to sell the 1937 Chevrolet he was building. He always wanted another and managed to find a replacement and built that project many years later when he finally had the ranch paid off.
When his wife Donna wanted a turquoise and white Nash Metropolitan convertible, he built one, starting with a hardtop he cut off and turned into a soft-top version. But that little Nash wasn’t practical on the highway, so the car was sold. Leeson knew what he wanted to build next after seeing a Nash Airflyte on a piece of property his brother-in-law bought.
“There was a big old Nash in the shed,” Leeson recalls. “I inquired, but the car wasn’t available. Those Nashes are uniquely different and that car planted a seed. I had to find another one and got on the internet.”
A Nash Airflyte in relatively good condition turned up for sale at Frankman Motors in Sioux Falls, S.D. Leeson bought the car and began his hot-rod transformation. What he told Leno about the Nash is this: the body wasn’t rusted, but the unibody chassis had a bit of corrosion in it.
Leeson also explained to Leno his desire to ensure the Nash would be a good cruising vehicle. For that, he stripped the car down in his own workshop and then shipped it to Watson’s Hot Rods in Edmonton. There, a new box-tube chassis was fabricated and bolted under the car, tied into the original unibody structure. The suspension was replaced up front with Heidt’s Mustang II components, while a four-link rear with coil-over springs was attached to a Ford Explorer differential.
After that, the Nash came back to Leeson’s shop, where the build progressed. He told Leno that power comes from a tried-andtrue Chevrolet 350 engine paired with a 200-4R transmission. Instead of running a modern fuel-injection system, Leeson chose to run a retro set of three two-barrel Speedway Motors carburetors to effectively provide a tri-power setup. Leno approved.
“I didn’t modify the body at all,” Leeson says. “You can customize stuff, but they’re already so unique looking with all of the body lines and low fender openings. That’s why people referred to them as ‘bathtubs’ because they look like an old iron tub flipped over with wheels under them.”
Leeson had a friend do the bodywork and knew he wanted the Nash painted two-tone green, a dark shade on the bottom and a light shade on top. He was having trouble locating a darker green that he liked until he saw a modern Fiat 500 drive past him. It was the green he was after and from there it was easy to backtrack to get the correct paint code.
Inside, Leeson used front buckets from a GMC Yukon because the shoulder belts are in the seats themselves, thereby making it easier for a rear-seat passenger to get in and out of the two-door car. Seats, headliner and door panels were all covered in pleather.
And because Leeson opted to install a new steering column with a banjo spoke-style steering wheel, the original wheel and its horn ring were extra parts to him. That’s why he contacted Leno.
The Leesons flew to Los Angeles, toting the bubble-wrapped steering wheel on the plane as carry-on luggage. They stayed in Brentwood, met with Leno and Leeson handed over the wheel.
“People ask why I didn’t have him pay for it,” Leeson says. “But it’s a car guy thing; that’s a chapter in my life and his. He just appreciated the parts and I didn’t want anything from him, I was glad to help him out.”