Last week I wrote up a contest between the first coast-to-coast airmail flight and a group of Essex cars. The cars won.
Hudson touted the event in a 1922 pamphlet which omits the airmail comparison entirely. By this account the project was originated by the Post Office in an attempt to widen the range of carriers. The author starts with a full history of postal systems, from ancient riders to the Pony Express to ships to trains to telegraphs.
Then he hits the important part, the Essex part.
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The postal authorities didn’t expect Essex to beat the time of the higher-priced cars, much less lower the records. What interested them was to see if a moderate-priced car could stand the gruelling punishment of a cross-country run and make a creditable showing of time.
With four stock Essex cars, two from New York and two from San Francisco, all express mail time between those two points was beaten, except the train that holds the trans-continental record.
[After some thrilling adventures in the rocks of the mountains and the ruts of the Midwest,]
Essex #1 rolled into NY, 4 days 14 hours and 43 minutes after leaving Frisco. All transcontinental auto time was beaten.
Pictures of the journey: (Note the official US MAIL titles on the cars.)
In Wyoming one of the Essex team managed to sync with one of the airplanes.
From the cities given in the text, they were following US 6, the Grand Army of the Republic Highway until Chicago. I’ve driven US 6 through Iowa.
At Chicago they switched to US 30, the Lincoln Highway.
And I’ve been in Lima, shopping at Fair Radio Sales for surplus ham equipment.
Finishing in NYC.
8 minutes later the superintendent of the NY post office received the first pouch of US mail ever carried across the continent by motor car.
Lots of good publicity, but the publicity was made possible by a QUALITY PRODUCT. Essex was faster than the low-priced competition, and endurance events like this proved it was tougher. The result was strong sales, holding the #3 spot through much of the 1920s.
Roy Chapin set the standard in the first year of Hudson’s life:
The group who founded Hudson started out working at Olds, then split in disgust and formed an unusual collaboration with Chalmers while running a partly independent company. Soon they separated amicably from Chalmers. Just before the latter split, Chalmers sent Roy Chapin on the obligatory Europe tour. All US engineers and educators and architects looked to Europe, especially Germany, for inspiration and guidance. Chapin toured the auto shows and the factories, and sent back a telegram saying:
I find that a reputation for quality of product is the only thing that can continuously pay dividends.
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I’m struck by the sheer excitement of the contest, which comes through loud and clear 100 years later. Thrills and adventure are missing in modern products. We can’t buy the car that beat the trains and planes through the gruelling mud and mountains. Bitcoiners seem to experience a similar thrill, first to try the supposedly revolutionary new form of money that beats all others. BUT: Bitcoin isn’t even a product, let alone a quality product built to take on hard tasks. It’s just a way to lose your shirt.
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