The world’s largest collection of 1929 and 1930 Nash Motors automobiles exists not in a museum, but rather entombed in the frigid depths of Lake Michigan. The cars — 268 of them — are lashed in rows in a crumpled heap next to the wreck of the SS Senator, a Great Lakes steamship that rests in an uncharted sinkhole about 15 miles east of Port Washington, Wis. It sank during the final days of the Roaring Twenties as the country was plunging into the Great Depression. The ship sank on Halloween, Oct. 31, 1929; mere days after the infamous Black Thursday stock market crash that threw the country into an economic spiral. The Senator left Kenosha two days earlier, laden with $251,000 worth of brand new cars from Nash Motors. Shipwreck diver Tamara Thomsen with the Wisconsin Historical Society has surveyed the wreck and said the cars on the inside are in pretty good condition. The cars would likely have sold for $1,000 to $2,000. As for Nash Motors, the company went on to make the popular Rambler compact. In 1954, the company restructured into the American Motors Corporation, and in 1987 Chrysler acquired the company and rebranded its models as Jeep-Eagle.
