Tag: Hudson
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Start with quality.
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…
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Another Post Office anniversary today
Yesterday was Neither Snow nor Rain Day. Today is also a notable point on the PO timeline. The Post Office podcasts feature several Firsts or attempted Firsts in postal transportation, including the first balloon flight in 1859. The PO could define routes and transport methods as suitable for mail. Every new development was soon postalized,…
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Also unsurprising
Also unsurprising but not as important as arsonists… Bari Weiss set up a fake “independent” news source using Substack as the platform. At first it looked independent, but soon showed its purpose. It’s just a branch office of NYTimes. Bari allegedly got disgusted with NYTimes and quit to form her own media company. She’s competing…
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Usual subjects
Random thought on the usual subjects. The Nash Metropolitan was the first offshoring in the US auto industry. Most US makers had branches in Canada and Euro countries from the start. The branches functioned in different ways: some made their own cars, some made identical US models, most made variations or descendants of US cars.…
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Hudson was first after all
A while back I was surprised to find electric wipers on a Hudson in 1928. I ran through some owners manuals online and concluded that historian Conde must be wrong. No, he was probably right. I wasn’t looking closely enough. This proves that Hudson had optional electric wipers in ’34, so ’28 isn’t unlikely. I…
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Truth in advertising
Auto writers uniformly say that Ford made a big mistake by emphasizing safety in ’56. Nobody wants safety! First, Ford wasn’t alone in the “mistake”. Everyone started offering seat belts and padded dashes in ’56. Imperial and Chrysler had standard padding since ’49. Second, it’s simply not true that everyone hates safety. Real men are…
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Local pride
The latest Collectible Auto mag features a car that nicely meshes with two of my interests. It’s a carefully maintained ’57 Studebaker sedan, made in Hamilton and bought in Vancouver. The original owner used the car for long trips, so he rigged the front seat to recline Nash-style. When he died in 1980 his grandson…
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More Hudson trivia
A couple more Hudson trivia items. 1. I was wondering if Neals Motors in Australia was just a dealer who modified the cars, or a manufacturer. They definitely modified some trucks into Aussie-style utes. The answer is here. Neals was an assembly plant with a large factory. Presumably they didn’t cast and forge the parts,…
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Who’s communist?
Trump wants to disconnect our auto industry from its foreign branches and “bring it all home”. The impulse is good but the approach is fucked up as usual. Our auto makers had foreign branches FROM THE START. Ford and Buick had Canadian plants a few years after founding, and nearly all makers had Canada plus…
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Status inversions
Earlier I noticed that leather reversed its status rather suddenly in the mid 30s. Buggies had leather seats because leather is waterproof. The earliest automobiles were buggies plus motors, and continued as fully open vehicles with leather seats. As closed cars became more common in the 20s, cloth upholstery became the sign of status. The…
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More anniversaries
Jan 20 is one of my anniversary dates. = = = = = PARTIAL REPRINT: When I got out of prison, my first experience with independent life was in this duplex in Stillwater. I restarted college on Jan 20, 1970. My Zenith Trans-Oceanic helped to pull me out of the walls and back into the…
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Same thing two ways
This morning I noticed two ways of saying the same thing, showing opposite ways of looking at the world and looking at business. First, Conde’s book on Hudson tells the story of the company’s founding in great detail. I summarized it before. The group who founded Hudson started out working at Olds, then split in…
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More Hudson trivia
Bought a Hudson picture book by John Conde, who was the Nash/AMC official historian as well as a PR agent. I first read a Conde book in 1960. When my parents bought a new Rambler, the dealer gave them Conde’s AMC Family Album, and I treasured it and read it for years. It helped to…
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Non-hostile divorce
Most successful companies started as hostile divorces or shotgun marriages (LBOs). In autos, all the big names but Ford and Packard started as splits or buyouts**. Hudson’s origin was unusual. It was founded by salesman Roy Chapin and engineer Howard Coffin. Both originally worked at Oldsmobile. When Oldsmobile was bought by Wall Street types who…
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Random auto thought
Chrysler doesn’t get enough credit for devotion to safety. Imperials and Chryslers had padded dashes every year since 1949. The padding was standard from ’49 to ’54. Might have been optional later, but a quick look at online pictures for every year from ’55 to ’65 shows padding in every picture. Most are attractive, designed…
